Governor Vilsack has declared today “Disability Mentoring Day” in Iowa. Even with Iowa’s need for more workers, those with disabilities report a jobless rate of sixty percent or more. June Owens at Mercy Medical Center in Des Moines says they’ll try to change that by letting disabled youth “shadow” a hospital worker today as they do their job. Disability mentoring is a project supported by the U-S Labor department and the President’s task force on employment of people with Disabilities.
Today there will be two people in many sets of footsteps at Des Moines’ Mercy Hospital, and at other workplaces around the state and the nation.
It’s a national effort to promote hiring disabled people by giving them mentoring, and job-shadowing experience. Mercy’s June Owens explains mentoring gives the disabled a look any prospective worker would want, at just how a job is done.
Not only can employers find disabled workers, but it gives the applicant a chance to see what various workers do.
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