Disabled workers have an added need for mentors

By Carol Kleiman
Chicago Tribune

Having a mentor makes a difference in getting and keeping a job. And mentoring is particularly vital if you are disabled, according to Marca Bristo, president and chief executive officer of Access Living of Metropolitan Chicago, a nonprofit organization.

"Mentoring is of critical importance for the large population of disabled persons who still are significantly outside of the workforce," said Bristo, who is disabled and known nationally as a disability rights leader.

Bristo herself had a mentor — and it made a difference.

"She was a director of nursing at a large hospital," Bristo said. "She wasn't disabled herself but believed enough in me to recruit me to work and created a position for me. It included the concept of job sharing, which is incorporated into the Americans with Disabilities Act.

"In some respects, everything Access Living does is mentoring."

That includes not only mentoring clients but also mentoring staff: Sixty percent of the organization's 52 employees are disabled, and many are helped by mentors and expert mentoring "to go into many other kinds of positions," said Bristo.

Helping people with disabilities get jobs is always a challenge but is even more urgent when jobs are scarce.

That's why, in 2002, the American Foundation for the Blind, based in New York, introduced CareerConnect, a Web-based program for career exploration, job-seeking skills and finding mentors.

"Mentoring is important because few people may have encountered a blind person," said Karen Wolffe, program manager of CareerConnect.

"That means the visually impaired are left with the sighted world's misconceptions about their ability to work — and that's where mentoring comes in."

Additionally, when blind mentors give advice, support and inside information to blind job seekers, "blind people learn they indeed can work," said Wolffe, who has a master's degree in special education and a doctorate in rehabilitation counseling. She has worked in the field of blindness for 30 years.

Wolffe echoes Bristo in emphasizing the importance of having a mentor if you are disabled.

"In the two years since CareerConnect has been up," said Wolffe, "people have gained confidence, we've had reports of people successfully employed — and mentors have helped blind people maintain employment when their jobs were in jeopardy because they were losing their sight."