skip navigational links United States Department of Labor
May 9, 2009   
DOL Home > ODEP > Talent for a Winning Team
DOL Home

Workers with Disabilities: Talent for a Winning Team - January 2008

Javier S. and Oz M.: Demonstrating the Power of Mentoring Youth with Disabilities

image of Javier S. and Oz M.Javier S. and Oswald "Oz" M. are role models for the power of mentoring. They first met several years ago through a program at Partners for Youth with Disabilities (PYD), and have remained in a mentoring relationship. Oz is vice president for human resources at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital Network, and Javier is a college student majoring in social work. Each has a congenital limb difference, and Javier has learned, among other things, strategies for overcoming barriers associated with his disability. Now working part-time at the hospital where Oz first mentored him, Javier is also passing on the gift he has received by mentoring a younger person with a disability.

Oz, whose job includes staffing various sites with skilled workers in an extremely competitive market, views mentoring as a business investment. "What better place for Javier to learn and gain exposure to his future career than in a hospital. Javier gains valuable experience. We gain a good trainee and, hopefully, a future employee," he says.

Mentoring is an important strategy for assisting youth in transitioning successfully into adulthood, but little information has been available on mentoring youth with disabilities, or career-focused mentoring in general. In 2003, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) awarded grants to a number of providers of mentoring services, including PYD, so that these providers could help build the capacity of small community and faith-based organizations to provide career-focused mentoring services to youth with disabilities. In 2006, PYD collaborated with ODEP to present the first national conference on mentoring for youth with disabilities. Through another grant program, the National Collaborative on Workforce and Disability for Youth, ODEP developed Paving the Way to Work: A Guide to Career-Focused Mentoring for Youth with Disabilities.


WRP logo
Workforce Recruitment Program


business case logo
Business Case


business Sense logo
Business Sense


JAN logo
Job Accommodation Network


EARN works logo
EARN Works


ODEP Summit logo
ODEP Summit


Disability Info Logo
Disability Information Resource


ODEP Circle of Champions logo
Circle Of Champions


ODEP Alliance Logo
Alliance Initiative

Technical Assistance Centers:

Start-Up USA logo
Start-Up USA


NCWD logo
National Collaborative on Workforce and Disability


NCWD logo
National Technical Assistance and Research Center

Disability
Employment
Situation

April 2009


Percentage of people with disabilities in the labor force:

  22.8%

Unemployment rate of persons with a     disability:

    12.9%

 

Phone Numbers