Everyone can work! With high expectations and the right supports, people with all types of disabilities can be successful at work. You and your youth can get the support you need to address any concerns, explore options and plan for work in the community.
Key things to know:
Your youth can work, and get the supports they need to work.
Work can mean more money, more options and more freedom.
You can help your youth develop a vision for work and reach their goals.
Videos: Young adults discuss the importance of employment in their lives
You might be concerned that your youth can’t work a 40-hour week or in a fast-paced environment doing difficult tasks. That’s OK. For some youth, working 5 or 10 hours a week is a great start. Not all jobs will be appropriate right away, and effective employment programs can help customize jobs for all skill levels and interests. Your youth’s employment success should be measured on an individual basis, based on their unique goals and skills.
Help your youth develop a vision and reach their goals for work
Employment should be rooted in what your youth wants to do. You play a critical role in supporting your youth in thinking about their vision for work and reaching their goals. Together with your youth’s support team, you can set work as an expectation, help your youth identify their strengths, interests and preferences related to work, and encourage them to explore different career possibilities. In addition, you can use Charting the LifeCourse’s portfolio for family perspective on employment (PDF) to explore your own thoughts about the role employment can play in your youth’s life.
Watch the video below to hear from young people about why employment is an important part of living their best lives.
Employment
Envision employment as a part of your youth’s future:
Traditionally, families of youth with significant disabilities were told there were limited options for services after high school. Families were encouraged to put youth into day programs or sheltered work without any real discussion about community employment. Today, we know that there are many benefits to paid employment in the community, and that with the right job and the right supports, anyone can work. That's why prevocational services (which include training and experiences at sheltered workshops) are now time-limited for those new to this service after January 2021.
Youth secure a job in the community (with or without supports)
Your loved one with a disability might not start out working 40 hours a week. If needed, the new path to employment can include a combination of community-based employment, day program, or other educational or recreational activities to round out the day.
Employment First is a movement and framework for change focused on a singular premise: All people, including people with complex support needs, are presumed capable of competitive integrated employment. Employment First calls on public entities to work together to make meaningful employment, fair wages and career advancement a priority outcome for people with disabilities — rather than placement in a sheltered workshop or other segregated or noninclusive setting.
To be considered competitive integrated employment, a job must:
Be gained and performed on an individual basis, not as part of a segregated group or enclave
Be integrated, with the employee with a disability working alongside and interacting with employees without disabilities
Be in the general workforce, with the job preexisting or customized for the employee with a disability and the employee on the payroll of the business (or self-employed)
Pay minimum wage or the prevailing wage for jobs in that sector
In contrast, a job does not qualify as competitive integrated employment if the person with a disability:
Is bussed to a location with a group of other people with disabilities to do work
Is kept away from coworkers and not given an opportunity to be part of the work culture
Works but isn't recognized as having an official position within the business
Is paid through a service provider rather than the business itself
Earns less than minimum wage or gets paid drastically less than those without disabilities doing the same job
There are many benefits of working and earning money. A true job paying real wages can provide:
A sense of purpose and pride
The opportunity to contribute to a person’s family and community
Develop job skills at an age when employers are more understanding
Create friendships and a personal network
Learn about money and earn spending money before they have to pay bills
Build confidence
Be motivated to plan for their future
Young people with disabilities whose parents expect them to get a job are far more likely to get early work experience. And young people who get early work experience are far more likely to have jobs as adults.
Here are some ways you can help:
Set an expectation of work early on. This can include giving your child chores around your home and helping your child get little jobs from neighbors and friends.
Be enthusiastic about work. Young people with disabilities are often excited about working. Share their enthusiasm!
Support your youth’s efforts to find work now. Working while still in high school or in college is one of the best ways to prepare for work as an adult. A job doesn’t have to mean working a lot of hours; what matters is that your youth learns what a job is all about.
Most young people with disabilities want to work and dream of finding a job. Sometimes parents think it’s impossible, but it’s not: When parents believe in that dream and expect their children to work, it makes a big difference.
Meaningful work experiences in high school are a strong predictor of employment success as an adult. The key is meaningful — in the community, doing or learning about actual tasks required for a specific job, and related to your child’s interests.
These experiences can include:
Informational interviews. Your student meets with an employer or key staff member to ask specific questions about the business, industry or job.
Job shadowing. Your youth observes someone doing work that might be of interest. For example, they might follow a shipping manager in a warehouse if they're interested in that type of work.
Volunteering. Volunteering can help your youth gain experiences, discover strengths and talents, and make connections in the community, while strengthening a resume. Be careful to approach volunteer opportunities as a step toward competitive integrated work rather than a substitute for work. Volunteering should be time-limited or done in addition to a paid job. Check out Volunteer Match to find volunteer opportunities for your youth.
Internships. Internships are structured experiences where your student would work at a business (paid or not) for a set time to learn and improve skills.
Paid entry-level job. Your youth may be ready to enter the workforce directly. It isn't always necessary to wait for employment services to help youth find jobs.
You want what’s best for your loved one and may be apprehensive about employment as you balance concerns about their disability, safety, and benefits, along with choices about services, education and employment.
It may feel like you face a constant state of uncertainty when coordinating services and supports. The thought of sheltered work or a day program may be comforting given the all-day supervision and opportunity to interact with peers. Or perhaps the prospect of employment seems insignificant compared to the risk of disrupting the services already in place. But both of these options deprive your loved one of the benefits of meaningful work experience.
Discuss your concerns about services with your youth’s support team—they can help explore solutions that ease the transition from current services to those that support employment.
You might fear that your youth will be vulnerable if they work in the community. Will your youth be OK in a work setting, on public transportation or around people who don’t know them well? You might feel the need to err on the side of caution and avoid situations that seem risky, but there are ways to address concerns and minimize risks so they don’t hold your youth back from their goals. Learn more about balancing safety concerns »
Perhaps you think your youth is too disabled to work, that no one will hire them, or if they do, your loved one won’t be able to keep the job. If so, know that these concerns tend not to be true.
Many people with disabilities, even those with significant disabilities, are working successfully in the community.
There are services and supports to help people find and keep the right job. The goal is to look for a job that matches your youth’s interests and abilities. You and your youth can do this on your own, and you can also get help from employment specialists at your student’s school or from other organizations like Vocational Rehabilitation Services (VRS).
Assistive technology and other reasonable accommodations can help your youth succeed at work.
Employment doesn’t have to be half-time or full-time. Even working a few hours a week helps your youth build job skills and work experience.
Years ago, families were encouraged to apply for benefits, seeing Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or other benefits as a path to consistent support for their loved one with a disability. But benefits like SSI only provide a very minimum income and relying on benefits alone provides barely enough money to get by — let alone enough for your youth to live their best life.
Working can be a solution and all benefit programs support work so that people have more money when they work and can keep their health coverage.
Think about what training or education you might need after high school
Learn self-advocacy skills
Get work experience
If your student has an Individual Education Plan (IEP), talk to your youth’s IEP case manager about planning for employment. Your youth might also be able to get help through Vocational Rehabilitation Services, State Services for the Blind, WIOA youth services[should WIOA services be mentioned on 'The planning process' page, or in the YIT toolkit?] and waiver services.
As you and your youth prepare for work, it’s important to understand their current benefits, additional benefits that might be available, and how work could impact those benefits. It’s important to know the facts about benefits and how they support work so your youth can understand their options and make decisions about working.
While public benefits can provide steady income, over the long-term they are not enough money to live on. That’s why it’s so important to encourage your youth to make work a part of their plan.
All public disability benefit programs are designed so that people who work end up better off. They do this through special rules, called work incentives, that let people keep their health coverage, have more money, and keep their benefits if you need them while working. This means your child can work and continue to get benefits like Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Medical Assistance (MA). Work and benefits can go together to help your youth pursue their dreams, live independently, and achieve their higher education and work goals.
With a job, your loved one can:
Keep needed health coverage
Have more total income
Save money
Get their benefit back quickly if it stops and is needed later
Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Medical Assistance (MA) have different rules for children and adults.
Supplemental Security Income (SSI) If your youth gets SSI and will be turning 18 soon, they will likely go through an Age-18 Redetermination before turning 19. As a part of the process, Social Security will review their disability to make sure they still qualify for SSI as an adult. This doesn’t mean your youth will be worse off: after turning 18, your youth may qualify for the same benefits as before and possibly more. Benefit programs are designed to make sure your loved one is always better off when working.
Work programs might help your youth keep getting SSI: If they are in a work program, such as an Individualized Education Program (IEP), Vocational Rehabilitation Services (VRS), or Plan to Achieve Self-Support (PASS), they can keep getting SSI even if the Age-18 Redetermination says they do not have a disability.
Medical Assistance (MA) Eligibility rules for MA change between ages 18 and 21 based on how your youth qualified for MA.
If your youth gets benefits, you likely know there are rules for reporting changes to earnings from work, unearned income, assets and living situation. When your youth works, they will need to report their earnings to the appropriate benefit agency, like Social Security or your local county human services agency or tribal nation.
As you youth starts to look for work, you can use your personal network to find work opportunities. Consider contacting:
Friends
Neighbors
Colleagues
Local businesses, clubs, civic organizations or places of worship
Places your child frequents
Extended family
And remember, all these people have networks of their own — people who might know someone who works in a field of interest to your youth.
Consider utilizing the following resources as your youth prepares for employment:
Disability Hub MN is a free statewide resource network that helps people with disabilities solve problems, navigate the system and plan for the future.
Explore the links below to learn more about making work a part of your youth’s plan:
The Hub also has trained experts statewide who can answer questions about work, benefits and more. You can contact a Hub expert by phone at 1-866-333-2466, or by chat or email.
Disability Benefits 101, or DB101, offers tools and resources that can help parents understand work and benefits.
My Vault is a free, secure personal account you and your youth can use to exploring planning activities, access saved Estimator sessions, and store and share files with the people who support your youth.
As your student begins to plan their path to employment and build their skills, consider helping them use this employment resource guide for students with disabilities (PDF) developed by the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) and the Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED).
As a part of the transition planning process, you, your youth and their support team will identify their strengths and needs as they relate to the topics of Minnesota’s transition framework, and together decide which ones to prioritize.
The transition framework’s employment topics include:
Career exploration
Self-awareness of strengths, interests, preferences, and needs
Occupations or career possibilities that match strengths, interests, preferences, and needs
Work-based learning
Real work experiences
Benefits planning
Work and benefits
Resources and tools to use
How to manage benefits while working
The job process
Job search strategies
Interview skills
Applying for work
How to advance at work
How to leave a job
Skills for success
Work ethics
Hygiene
Interpersonal skills
Communication skills
Job readiness skills
Advocacy and supports
Self-advocacy in the workplace
Disability disclosure
Accommodations and assistive technology
Employment services and supports
Work plays an important role in helping your youth shape a successful career and a life of purpose and independence. In addition to providing money, work can also help them learn new things, develop job skills, create friendships and networks, and build confidence.
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