Kasich order targets jobs for Ohio’s disabled

March 21, 2012 at 12:00a.m.

COLUMBUS

Gov. John Kasich has signed an executive order aimed at helping Ohioans with developmental disabilities better consider their career options.

The document, signed during ceremonies at a Columbus-area hospital, creates the Employment First Task Force, which will work with state agencies to develop programming within public schools to connect disabled students with full-time jobs at employers other than sheltered workshops. The latter provide jobs for individuals, though at pay rates well under minimum wage.

“There is nothing wrong with a sheltered workshop,” Kasich said. “It is meant for some but it isn’t meant for all. . . . We have people with developmental disabilities who we’ve got to stand up for who can be placed in a setting where they’re going to get even more self confidence, where they’re going to feel better about everything they do.”

The executive order is a first step in a policy proposal included in Kasich’s mid-biennium budget bill. It calls for the departments of developmental disabilities, mental health, education and job and family services, along with the Ohio Rehabilitation Services Commission, to work together on the framework for the new Employment First effort.

An initial focus will be on students, age 14 and up, who are transitioning from school settings to jobs in their communities, determining whether their abilities are best suited for sheltered workshops or other employment opportunities.

“We’ve got to spread the word,” Kasich said. “Whether it’s the developmentally disabled or whether it’s the mentally ill or whether it’s the dysfunctional, at times, poor, we’ve got no right to run over them. In fact, we’ve got to lift them up.”

Kasich was assisted in the executive-order signing Monday by Micah Hetick, a 23-year-old developmentally disabled man from Columbus who has found success through state job programs.

“Everyone deserves the chance to work in the community with an opportunity to make a livable wage,” said Sue Hetick, Micah’s mother. “He’s obviously a taxpayer, and he’s also a consumer. Using his own money has reduced his reliance on Social Security.”

She added, “Unfortunately, society and some of the supports and services we’ve had haven’t always supported that. More often than not, the expectation was that Micah would be in a separate classroom, in a separate place, that he would be employed in a sheltered workshop or not employed at all. And that wasn’t an option for us.”