Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to one and all.
From all of us at DMC we hope your Holiday was merry and we send you all best wishes for a happy new year.
We are coordinating the development of a vocational services section on our web site and it is looking really good. It will offer you forms for referral and useful links as well as job search links for clients and various information for potential employers. We look forward to sharing it with you when it is complete.
Have a great few months.
Enid
Food, love, career, and mothers, the four major guilt groups.
-Cathy Guisewite
Prosperity is a way of living and thinking, and not just money or things. Poverty is a way of living and thinking, and not just a lack of money or things.
-Eric Butterworth
DMC Client Success Story
In recognition of the importance of working as a team member Mr. Ben Reisin, Rehabilitation Counselor, of the Whittier Office is a great example of how working together and supporting even the most difficult clients can work! Mr. Reisin's unique method of empowering and supporting client's such as Alice Zamora, through her transition from home to work and continued contact made it possible for Alice to be permanently employed. Alice needed to relearn how to interact in the work place and approach work and coworkers with a positive attitude. The client was provided with suggestions and job retention ideas. Mr. Reisin was aware initially the client was ready to work, but would need to resolve certain work related issues, prior to being placed. With Mr. Resin's perseverance and client centered ideology, we were able to successfully close the case a 26 and help the client turn her life around.
Frances Curiel, Senior Employment Specialist
(714) 658-4834 / Fax: (714) 528-3641 jobdeveloper4@daylemcintoshcenter.org
Sometimes the heart sees what is invisible to the eyes.
– H. Jackson Brown
DMC Client Success Story
Christine out of the Laguna Hills office recently obtained a position with the County of Orange. She had a few problems in the beginning, but her RC Dennis McGuire assisted her in switching departments within the county. Christine is still happily employed with the County and shown that she has become a true success story.
Carolann Kollmer, Employment Specialist
(714) 658-4283 / Fax:(310) 548-9339 jobdeveloper5@daylemcintoshcenter.org
If you can dream it you can make it so.
– anonymous
Windmills Training
Some of our staff members are trained as Windmills Instructors. We are very proud to have them educate and train local companies. The County of Orange recently contacted us and we will be providing their recruiters with Windmills Training in January of this year. We hope to extend this training to management throughout the county to increase understanding of the disabled and any issues they may face at work. We hope to educate as many people as we can through this training as it will help facilitate the employment of persons with disabilities. If you know of any companies that would like this training, please have them contact Manny at 714-658-4281. Below are brief summaries of the Modules included in the Windmills Training Program:
Module 1: Empathy (Time: 45 minutes to 1 hour): This is a warm-up exercise in which the participants will be introduced to each other through the use of "empathy cards". This introduction is followed by a group discussion. The EMPATHY module gives participants a better understanding of their feelings in a "first encounter" with a person with a disability.
Module 2: The Story Module (Time: 45 minutes to 1 hour): This is a warm-up exercise which allows the participants to share personal experiences they have had with disabilities or persons with disabilities. It can be used by itself as a replacement for the EMPATHY module or presented in conjunction with the EMPATHY module.
Module 3: The Calendar Game (Time: 1 hour): The CALENDAR GAME highlights the problems managers and supervisors can have going from theory to application in full utilization of a new employee with a disability.
Module 4: Rumor Game (Time: 30 to 45 minutes): One area of employee concern is changes in the workplace. Hiring and accommodating persons with disabilities will represent major changes for many companies and countless departments. The one constant in the fear of change is the presence of rumors. While rumors can cause disruption in any employment setting, their impact on situations involving the employment of persons with disabilities can be twofold: disturbance among the employees and the creation of an environment of failure for the person with a disability. In this exercise, participants will be able to see how the natural distortion of facts by passing rumor, combined with fear of change and attitudes about persons with disabilities, can have potentially disastrous results.
Module 5: Profile (Time: 45 minutes): The PROFILE exercise allows participants to explore stereotypes and assumptions about persons with disabilities, and job matching. The issues of ability, cost, production, safety, quality, and customer and co-worker reaction can be lifted up and examined as participants select "likely" and "unlikely" matches from lists of jobs and employees. The exercise also looks at the problem of placing persons with disabilities on the job by evaluating their inabilities.
Module 6: Interview (Time: 45 minutes): The INTERVIEW module is an analysis exercise where participants review interview questions and fill out a questionnaire. The module concentrates on creating an atmosphere in the interview conducive to the positive flow of information, as well as to following guidelines of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
Module 7: Pick a Disability (Time: 45 minutes): Participants are asked to select two disabilities from a list of four: The disability that they would choose for themselves if they had to have one and the disability that they would least want to have. This selection is followed with an interactive group discussion of the factors and issues that played a part in their decision. This is followed by a trainer led discussion about reactions to disabilities and how they can impact behavior towards persons with disabilities.
Module 8: Ask it Basket (Time: 35 to 45 minutes): This is a very simple exercise that gives the participants an opportunity to ask questions about disabilities in a non-threatening atmosphere. The participants should be able to find out how much or how little information is available through co-workers and friends. The participants will learn how unanswered questions prevent persons with disabilities from becoming employed or advancing beyond entry-level jobs.
Module 9: Encounter (Time: 1 to 1.5 hours depending on the # of persons with disabilities): In this module, the participants are able to talk with persons with disabilities in a non-competitive, relaxed, information-sharing atmosphere.
Module 10: Whose Fault (Time: 45 minutes): A successful program to hire and promote persons with disabilities relies on a harmonious working relationship among many levels of management and staff. An unsuccessful program requires only one of the players to fail. In this exercise, participants will hear a story about a "failure". They will then try to determine WHOSE FAULT the failure was. In the process of determining who was at fault, the group will begin to realize the importance of each person's role in making a program successful.
Module 11: Reasonable Accommodation (Time: 1 hour): In this exercise, participants are asked to evaluate the potential needs of persons with disabilities an to formulate possible solutions. This is followed by a group discussion focusing on the solutions developed by the group. The exercise closed with a review of an Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) question and answer sheet which addresses many of the most commonly asked questions about the ADA and reasonable accommodations.
DMC Client Success Story
Jennifer had been having difficulty finding a position as a school counselor even though she had a Master’s Degree in Special Education and a counseling certification. Her visual impairment (Jennifer is completely blind) seemed to be getting in the way. After I worked with her on interview questions and disability disclosure, Jennifer traveled to San Jose for an interview with their local school district. The interview practice paid off and she has already moved there to begin her new life. While this huge move can be scary, the support she received from her RC David Potzler, made it a bit easier. Congratulations to Jennifer and thank you to David.
Manny Ziegler, Senior Employment Specialist
(714) 658-4281 / Fax:(310) 837-2754 jobdeveloper1@daylemcintoshcenter.org
"The people that get on in this world are the people that get up and look for the circumstances that they want; and if they can't find them, they make them."
– George Bernard Shaw
DMC Job Developer contact information
Contact information for our job developers is below:
Enid Awad, Vocational Manager (714) 658-4293 / vocsvsmanager@daylemcintoshcenter.org
Frances Curiel, Senior Employment Specialist
(Spanish Speaking clients) (714) 658-4834 / Fax: (714) 528-3641 jobdeveloper4@daylemcintoshcenter.org
Vilma Delgado, Senior Employment Specialist
(Spanish Speaking clients) (714) 658-4835/ Fax: (562) 291-0607
jobdeveloper3@daylemcintoshcenter.org
Dolores Kollmer, Senior Employment Specialist
(Visually Impaired clients) (714) 658-4275 / Fax: (310) 548-9339 jobdeveloper2@daylemcintoshcenter.org
Thuy Tran, Employment Specialist
(Vietnamese Speaking clients) (714) 658-4290 / Fax: (562) 951-0305 ThuyDMC@aol.com
Manny Ziegler, Senior Employment Specialist
(Visually Impaired clients) (714) 658-4281 / Fax:(310) 837-2754 jobdeveloper1@daylemcintoshcenter.org
Carolann Kollmer, Employment Specialist
(Generalist caseload - fee-for-service basis) (714) 658-4283 / Fax:(310) 548-9339 jobdeveloper5@daylemcintoshcenter.org
