Kathleen Martinez, Assistant Secretary for Disability Employment Policy at the US Department of Labor & head of the Office of Disability Employment Policy has agreed to Keynote the upcoming EmployAbility Rally at the Arizona state Capitol Mall complex on October 28, 2010. Secretary Martinez is a great compliment to the slate of local and nationally renowned speakers already confirmed.

The Rally speakers will share successful personal/professional journeys achieved in highly competitive business, government, and military settings while experiencing, living with and celebrating disability. As a Rally designed to celebrate the fact that the American workforce has successful, contributing members who have disability and that people with disabilities want to work, the event is the first of its kind to be held.

The event organizers are comprised of Disability-owned business enterprises, local and state business organizations, government agencies, local and national employers, staffing agencies, institutions of higher education and community organizations. A major theme of the Rally is about moving our community towards having open conversations that create a post-disabled world.

We see it as taking an assertive step forward to get past generations of conditioned thinking about disabilities- both of the general public as well as those experiencing life with a disability. We offer a public celebration focusing on what PEOPLE can do as we begin to break social conditioning based on differences and look at how we are all similar in what we want out of work or life.

Our tagline of “New Labels to Build a Better Bottomline” represents our work towards developing better partnerships between community organizations, businesses, government agencies and job seekers – all of whom want the same thing – employment decisions based upon selecting the best available & most qualified candidates for a job, promotion or retention. It has the potential to be the single largest gathering of qualified job-seekers with disabilities and employers ever assembled.

Support from the business community has been positive, active, and on display with significant resource commitments to enable the event to pay for itself months ago. These proud sponsors have a strong record of working with and hiring applicants with disabilities. They understand by embracing employee and disability-owner business supplier diversity as part of their corporate/business strategies, it brings competitive advantages and builds economic health for all communities. They get that taking these steps means it is not a matter of what business can do for PwD, but really more of what PwD can do for them.

We hope to bring meaningful change to Arizona, and are working towards sustaining the excitement of the EmployAbility Rally by establishing an affiliate of the US Business Leadership Network (US BLN) in Phoenix. According to a 2010 Harris Poll survey regarding the typical employment hiring methods used by companies looking for qualified workers with disabilities, 40% of American businesses state that don’t know how to find qualified candidates who are PwD. They use state agencies as their primary resource 40% of the time, but only 3 in 10 employers feel these resources are doing an effective job.

The Arizona BLN affiliates #1 job would be to support employer efforts to hire qualified PwD and increase universal accessibility in HR, PR and employment practices. The Arizona BLN would position itself to create a “single supplier relationship” as a One Stop resource between employers, vendors, placement entities, and job seekers.

Author Bio: Since 1982, Life Development Institute staff and its administrators are devoted to actively work with and support parents who are eager for a place where their adult-child can thrive and succeed. For more information about adult special education topics visit Life Development Institute.

Category: Education
Keywords: adult special education, life development institute, special education phoenix, special needs adults