Employment Briefly
Employment & Mental Illness Report
The Disability Research Institute is pleased to announce the availability of the following publication from its research program. To download the publication, visit the DRI web site at http://www.als.uiuc.edu/dri
Barriers to Employment Among Persons with Mental Illness: A Review of the Literature. July 31, 2002 Donna D. McAlpine, Ph.D. and Lynn Warner, Ph.D - Rutgers
Increasing Employment Opportunities for Latinos with Disabilities
NCLR's Workforce Development Unit and World Institute on Disability's (WID) Proyecto Visión: forging a collaborative partnership.
By Kathy Martinez and Sue Liu
Due to advances in technology, medical treatment, and civil rights legislation such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, disabled people are becoming even more productive, contributing members of society.
Latinos with disabilities are ready to catch this wave-and with the help of a new initiative, funded by the US Department of Education's Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA) and administered through the World Institute on Disability, a program was established to create the National Technical Assistance Center for Latinos with Disabilities. Efforts towards greater integration for disabled Latinos will begin to reach fruition.
Disabled Latinos, members of the fastest-growing US population, face higher rates of unemployment and often have less education, and therefore fewer opportunities, than other disabled Americans and non-disabled Latinos.
Sonia Pérez's findings in Moving up the Economic Ladder show that many Latinos lack networks in employment sectors that promote higher wages and career advancement opportunities. Proyecto Visión is the first national initiative established to connect disabled Latinos to these pathways to employment, through innovative partnerships between national civil rights groups, businesses, community-based organizations, government agencies, and the disabled community. Staff from Proyecto Visión will work with NCLR's Workforce Development staff to fill in the existing gaps for employment-seeking Latinos with disabilities. By bringing together stakeholders in the Latino, disability, business, and employment service communities, this project will address these disparities, and help to even the playing field for Latinos with disabilities as they prepare to enter or advance in the workforce.
To learn more about Proyecto Visión, contact Kathy Martinez at Kathy@wid.org or Daniel Gutierrez at Daniel@wid.org.
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