Living in a Visual World: Overcoming Barriers to Employment in the Visually Impaired and Blind Community People who are blind or visually impaired have significantly higher rate of unemployment than those in the general population (Ferronatoa & Ukovic, 2014). According to the National Federation of the Blind (NFB), in 2013 only 40.2% of adults at working age who reported significant vision loss were employed (Erickson, Lee, & Schrader, 2015). The visual impairment community faces numerous barriers when seeking employment. In the past employers have believed that hiring people with disabilities may negatively affect their other workers or they may be unable to complete the tasks of that occupation (Golub, 2006). Crudent, Sansing, and Butler (2005), have identified several barriers that are most common for people with visual impairments, which include; negative attitudes towards visual impairments, transportation, lack of job skills, finding access to print, and lack of support in the rehabilitation organizations. Examining the current research on barriers to employment and how to overcome them demonstrates the benefits the field of rehabilitation counseling and how to better serve clients within this community. People who are blind or visually impaired have the ability to prevail over the obstacles put in place by the environment and society. The key areas of focus in this article is employer attitudes, accommodations, transportation, agency influence, and social support.
It is however not an easy feat. For accessibility to the fullest capacity to be to be established, organizational systems require funds to be pumped in. these funds will go towards making infrastructural and operational modifications to the system so that it caters to all needs. Also, application/recruitment and selection processes will need to be brought up to standard as well. These cannot only be planned; it has to be implemented to be function. Afterwards which the organization will have to regulate, monitor and make improvements to the system as required by the results they get. For example, for an organization to high a qualified blind candidate to join their team, the must first ensure accessibility by providing funding for a Braille machine, afford the candidate the opportunity of receiving correspondence or documents in Braille, ensure all other members of staff pass documents to him/her in Braille, maintain or improve on the process of communication
People with disabilities suffer discrimination such as the refuse of companies to hire those peoples. An estimated 386 million of the world’s working-age persons have some kind of disability, according to ILO. In a recent research, they found that two-third of the unemployed and disable persons said that they would like to work but they could not find jobs.
While the struggle to find employment in today’s society is difficult for everyone, the chances are nearly impossible for disabled adults. For example, 1 in 3 high functioning young adults
Individuals with disabilities continually encounter various forms of discrimination, including intentional exclusion from certain work areas, that denies them the opportunity to compete on an equal basis and to pursue those opportunities that guarantees success in the society. To guarantee success there is expectation regarding the relationship between the employer and employee, giving close attention to the various factors that should be considered to make the person with disability successful. This paper outlines the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the terms and conditions covering employees and employers as stated in Title 1. Title 1, as amended by the ADA amendment 2008, states that no covered entity will discriminate against a qualified individual based on disability (EEOC, 2015).
As the 25th anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act approaches later this month, it is clear that many of the fears of the business community failed to materialize. In the first five years of the act, there was no wave of business failures tied to compliance; no wave of unqualified applicants whom businesses were forced to hire; no wave of workers suddenly claiming disability due to a bad back; and no wave of lawsuits that inundated businesses with the burden of undue legal costs. (ADA.gov, 1995). In fact, tax subsidies provided in the act helped many businesses afford to make necessary access accommodations as well as to provide other reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities, and the positive ramifications have been considerable. Up to 45 percent of the disabled population now hold jobs and are contributing to the economy, (Brault, 2012).
We live in a digital world where the physical work becoming lesser and lesser day by day. In the professional world, if we look at any workplace whether it is industry or business, the people with disability will face discrimination. Stereotypical thinking is that people with physical disability cannot do much of work. Even though in this digital and machine world where less physical work required, though the disabled persons find difficulties. Most questionable thing is that, physically disabled persons who are entrepreneurs, they run their own business but they initially had faced discrimination in the professional world even though they have the qualification and every other qualities that proved that they are completely eligible for the job. The most questionable thing is that even bank which approved their loans for business, those banks also doubted them as a person.
There are several issues that create obstacles for disabled workers, negative perceptions, lack of external hiring support, and lack of internal hiring support (Wharton University of Pennsylvania, 2013). There can be the perception on the part of the employer that disabled workers create additional work for the colleagues, regardless of whether or not the fear is founded. There is frequently a lack of external hiring support as in no program by the corporation
Every person in the organization with a disability has a different need. Organizations work around the clock in many occasions to comply with the accommodations of each individual in the organization. Educating staff in how to comply with the requirements of ADA can be quite challenging. Organizations are afraid to hire, retain or accommodate workers with disabilities because of lack of awareness of disability and accommodations issues, concern over costs, and legal liability (Kaye et al., 2011). It is therefore the responsibility of the organization to educate management about the law and train on disabilities and accommodations. The guidelines, regulations, and building codes should be implemented to make the facility more welcoming and inviting to workers with disabilities (Stryker, R. (2013).
The American Disabilities Act requires employers to make reasonable accommodations that enable disabled employees the opportunity to work. According to Roberts, Betts, and Huzey (2014), Employers are responsible for, “Making the workplace easily accessible, Providing or modifying equipment and devices, Restructuring jobs, Changing work schedules, Reassigning staff to a vacant position, Providing readers or interpreters, Adjusting exams, training materials, and policies.” Employees have requirements too. Employees must identify themselves as disabled and request an accommodation (ADA, 2010). The employee and employer
CNIB provides support to Canadians who may be partially sighted or blind. They would like their clients to real their full potential by making them feel more comfortable and confident by suggesting specific skills they should enhance and also, giving them opportunities to get involved within their community or within the organization. The people who work for CNIB have all different employment backgrounds. Some people may be specialized in certain fields, but majority of the workers are actually volunteers. This method of referral is very important so people can reach their full potential and it also promotes independence. The main goal for all clients is that they will be able to look past their vision impairment and recognize they can do anything
bills are the best choices for the learning of blind or low vision students as of 2017 (Candela, 2017). However, these U.S. bills will cover issues in testing accommodations, government funding, education, and employment of vocational rehabilitation professionals. Many topics fall under the Trump administration. In the last thirty years, there has been a decrease in individuals with visual impairment and blindness worldwide (Ackland, Resnikoff & Bourne, 2018). Over, the last three decades avoidable blindness and visual impairment has globally eliminated these challenges with the assistance of Vision Loss Expert Group. Service providers and career mentors have come to the aid of college graduates with legal blindness to confront employment hindrance (Antonelli, Steverson & O'Mally, 2018). College
A person with a disability, or handicap, can be defined as someone with a physical or mental impairment, which has a substantial or long-term adverse affect on his or her ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities (Employment 2). Handicap workers face many challenges in the work place that the average person overlooks. Also, many special arrangements and alterations have been made to the workplace for people with handicaps. Accessibility, transportation, workload, and salary are just some of the many issues that must be considered with the prospect of employing the handicap.
Over the years, the workplace has experienced several instances of discrimination. In attempt to stop the discrimination, Title VII was passed. Although Title VII helped employers in terms of race, color, gender, religion and national origin, those who had disabilities continued to face the frustration of disability barriers in the workplace, given disability was not one of the listed protected classes. Employers abstained from hiring the disabled in fear of them not being able to perform at the same level as the other employees or the attitudes of such employees towards the disabled workers. Of course, there was some legal protection against discrimination: The Vocational Rehabilitation Act of 1973, but this law only applied to employees
As the world is advancing not only with knowledge, but technology as well it is more applicable for individuals with a seeing disability to be included in a general
A literature review illustrates how vital job placement services have been found to be in the job employment assistance endeavors. The review of previous studies reveals the “receipt of placement services” to be the “strongest predictor of employment outcomes” (Fleming et al., 2014, p. 7). A 2006 study characterized job placement as “the driving force behind the vocational rehabilitation program” (Fleming et al., 2014, p. 7). According to the researchers, the public Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) services have attained the status of “the most important vocational programs for persons with disabilities” (Fleming et al., 2014, p. 7). The authors cite the number of “new applicants [registered] nationally” as 564,908, in the 2011 Fiscal Year alone, as proof of the organization’s heavy caseload of new clients (Fleming et al., 2014, p. 7). These numbers indicate that rehabilitation services have been in high demand. Considering the importance of the vocational programs in assisting the disabled clients who are in need of employment, the authors determined that it was appropriate to examine the different ways these services can be rendered.