This is the third in a four part series on the challenges that young people with special needs face as they transition from school into adulthood. To read the first part, click here. To read the second part, click here.
When Beth Katten’s son Gary attended the West Hartford Schools transition program back in 2016, he spent time in volunteer work placements. He stocked shelves at Marshalls. He put folders together to give out to people at St. Francis Hospital. All tasks that Gary, who has an intellectual disability, was capable of completing.
But after Gary graduated from the program, Katten said, those volunteer positions never materialized into real employment opportunities.
“Even though he got experience working at Marshalls and St. Francis and I think maybe the hospital for special care, when he graduated and was done with school, it was like those jobs were not open to him. There was no job,” said Katten. “I really felt like that was teaching him something, but nothing that he could really use in his life.”
Gary’s experience is reflective of a challenge that parents and non-profit providers recounted to CT Examiner numerous times — the difficulty of getting mainstream companies to hire young people with disabilities.
Katten said that these companies are able to bring in a new crop of young people every year from district transition programs — which provide job training and life skills for young people between the ages of 18 and 22. Since those students work for free, it takes away the incentive for companies to hire them once they graduate.
Parent Lisa Baker described a similar challenge. Her son, Frankie, ran the coffee cart at a Walgreens distribution center during his transition program. But she said the only way Walgreens would hire him as an employee would be if he took timed, 12-hour shifts, which she said would be too much for him.
Lisa Jones, the career and transition services director at Benhaven, a private nonprofit school and career transition program for young people with autism and developmental disabilities, agreed. She said that certain organizations, like Burlington Coat Factory, had so many volunteers that they didn’t need to hire.
“Places like Burlington Coat Factory, they have hundreds of people volunteering during the week. And therefore, then, they don’t want to hire anybody. They don’t come right out and say it. But they’re getting all this free labor and it just feels awful,” said Jones.
Jones said that many school transition programs operate from that standpoint — they do a lot of volunteer work, but it doesn’t translate into a paid job in the community once they graduate.
A spokesperson from Marshalls told CT Examiner in an email that as of a few years ago, they no longer work with school transition programs. Instead, they work directly with non-profits to “identify candidates for paid training and temporary employment with the intent of hiring them should they complete certain requirements.”
“We’ve been thrilled to have these differently abled Associates serve in a variety of functions in our U.S. stores, including cashiers, sales floor and dressing room attendants, and merchandise processors,” the spokesperson said.
Walgreens and Burlington Coat Factory did not respond to requests for comment from CT Examiner.
Jones said they’ve had good experiences with fast food chains like Burger King, as well as small mom-and-pop businesses, who have been willing to hire her clients. But she said her clients at Benhaven have had some “disheartening” experiences while looking for a job.
“We’ve had several people go for an interview, and once [the employers] have seen that they have a disability, then all of a sudden they’re like, ‘We’re not hiring,’” said Jones. “They’re dedicated employees. They are on time. They are punctual. They don’t call out … They get provided training so that it ensures they’re doing a quality job.”
“One-size-fits-all”
The shift from school-based special education programs — including post-high school transition programs — to adult services is one of the biggest challenges that families of young people with disabilities face. Many refer to this period as the “special education cliff.”
The process often begins with the school transition programs, which are required to provide instruction in four areas: academics, vocational skills, community participation and daily living skills. A law passed in 2023 requires the school district to provide services through June 30 of the year a student turns 22.
Several parents and advocates who spoke to CT Examiner described school district transition programs as a “one-size-fits all” approach that didn’t necessarily help young adults who are capable of doing more than minimum wage work.
John Flanders, a special education attorney and president of the advocacy organization SEEK, said that most school transition programs focus on particular types of employment — working in fast food, pharmacies or retail.
“I think they’re focused on very involved kids with autism, or very involved kids with intellectual disabilities and completely ignoring everything else,” Flanders told CT Examiner.
He said the schools also failed to take advantage of the state community college system for young people who might be high functioning enough to attend classes.
“We have a tremendous community college system in this state … and nobody’s working very hard at getting kids integrated there. If you’re smart, you’ve got a lot of AP [classes]. But if you’re going to go to community college and learn how to do [a] dental assistant kind of thing, the programming is simply not there,” he said.
For some parents, this meant essentially developing their own personalized transition programs for their child, often in concert with the school district.
Jennifer, a parent who asked that her last name not be used to protect her son’s privacy, said that her son did attend classes at a community college while attending the school district’s transition program part-time. But Jennifer said she had to set up the program herself, and to drive her son wherever he needed to go.
“It’s just hard to bridge the gap for a kid like mine,” said Jennifer, adding that her son wasn’t ready for a four-year college, but that he also didn’t want to go into trades. “Everyone was trying to push [the] vocational track, but that’s not really what he wants to do. So I’m trying to honor what makes him happy.”
Lisa Allyn, the mother of a 29-year-old and a 27-year-old, both with disabilities, said the transition program at her older son Christian’s school, didn’t work for him — like Jennifer’s son, he was too high-functioning. Instead, the special education director put together a program for students who wanted to try community college. Christian eventually got his associate’s degree after four years, and then a bachelor’s degree.
“The higher level kids, they need different skills. They need job skills. They need [to know] how to do an interview, how to do a cover letter, how to LinkedIn and all this other stuff. And then obviously the social things that happen at a workplace and how to approach your boss and when to and when not to and all those things,” said Allyn. “[Transition programs] don’t provide all that.”
Allyn said Christian felt “very unprepared” at the time he transitioned out of the school system. She said there had not been much guidance around things like applying for social security. She also said her family paid for things like a career coach and an English tutor for Christian out of pocket.
Since graduating with his degree, Allyn said, Christian has had a hard time finding a suitable job. The state Bureau of Rehabilitation Services was not much help.
“They do a good job at ‘I can get you a job at Walmart,’” she said. “We wanted more of an entry level professional career for Christian and they’re just not great at that.”
The agency was willing to send a job coach, but Allyn said that the workplaces Christian was interested in working at — like a bank or in a human resources position — didn’t want a job coach there.
“In general, we found that companies do not want to provide training, or if they do, it’s minimal and they want you to catch on really fast — which he doesn’t,” she said.
Currently, she said, he’s working as a temporary contractor at the nuclear power plant Millstone. She said she eventually hopes he will be able to find a steady job and afford his own house, but that for now, he’s living with her and her husband.
“We can support him right now. I do talk to him about moving out someday. He’s not comfortable yet. He wants to have a steady income before he does that,” she said.
“The only game in town”
Paul Vicinus, the superintendent of schools in West Hartford, where Gary attended, said he couldn’t speak to how the program was structured a decade ago, but that currently they partner with both local businesses and town departments for prevocational training for their students.
“We make every effort to support placements aligned specifically to individual post-secondary goals and our objectives focus on developing students’ social, technical and related skills that will aid in their transition to work and career,” he wrote in an email. “Our community businesses are true partners and many students may go on to seek employment at these host sites based on their own post-secondary interests and plans as well as the needs and vitality of the economy and local businesses.”
Emily Barrett, program supervisor at the Farmington Valley Transition Academy, a collaboration between Simsbury Public Schools and Farmington Public Schools, said having partnerships with businesses in the community was key for finding sustainable employment for the young people.
She said this philosophy is reflected in their ability to match students with post-graduation employment.
One graduate of the academy, she said, got a job at Jersey Mike’s. One was offered a job in the Attorney General’s Office, and one was offered a job at the Apple Cinemas in Simsbury. She added that about 85 percent of the employees at BeanZ & Co, a coffee shop in Avon that employs primarily people with disabilities, were graduates of the academy.
While they do offer internships at places like Burlington Coat Factory or Stop and Shop as well, Barrette said these sites provide good skills even if they won’t result in a job after the student graduates.
“A lot of them have a lot of really valuable lessons like building stamina, following directions, trying something new, working together as a team and collaborating, practicing those advocacy skills. We call them soft skills,” said Barrett.
Barrett said that, at first, they would have students do multiple internships within one year. But employers said they would prefer to see a student stick with a job site for a year, and then have that employer act as a reference who could talk about the skills the student learned.
For students who want to attend community college, they support the young people with “soft skills” — things like understanding a syllabus, knowing what to do with 30 minutes of free time between classes, and providing a tour of the campus before classes begin. They also provide a shuttle two days a week so students can get to the Tunxis campus.
“It comes down to a lot of those executive functioning skills that so many of our students just struggle with. So this gives them a fairly safe opportunity to try that … and because it falls under the high school partnership umbrella, there isn’t a financial component for students,” said Barrett.
Wendy Shepard-Bannish, director of special services for the Farmington Public Schools, acknowledged that not all transition programs are equal, and said one way the legislature could help would be through fully funding Excess Cost Sharing, a state grant that is meant to take on the cost of special education for students if it goes above a certain amount.
“What you will find throughout the state of Connecticut is a huge variability in what districts actually commit to this population that need this level of support,” said Shepard-Bannish.
And Barrett and Katie Krasula, director of pupil services at Simsbury Public Schools, both said there needed to be more support for the state agencies who provided adult services. Krasula noted that school districts are the only entities under state law that are mandated to provide services to people with disabilities — the rest, she said, is up to the amount of funding that the state legislature provides.
“Sometimes it feels like school districts are the only game in town,” said Krasula.
The transportation problem
Incentivizing companies to hire disabled youth is part of a wide-ranging law passed last year focused on increasing support for people with disabilities. The law requires a group of state officials to look at the availability of employment assistance programs for youth, consider financial incentives for businesses to hire people with disabilities and create a plan “incentivizing businesses to provide training programs, offer modified interviews … and reserve market-rate, full-time jobs.”
The report is due to the legislature in January.
State Rep. Lucy Dathan, D- New Canaan, one of the main authors of the bill, said she thought of financial incentives as mainly taking the form of tax credits and assistance with job training. She said she also wanted to establish a working group of employers to figure out how to incentivize businesses to higher people with special needs.
But even when employers are willing to hire a young person coming out of a transition program, there are additional obstacles that can keep them from accepting the job. One of the biggest is transportation.
Gail, the relative and acting guardian of a young person with disabilities who asked not to be identified with her last name, said the limited public transit hours in the area of Connecticut where her relative lives severely limited his job choices.
“Retail jobs are anywhere from 9 a.m. to 10 p. m. So he [would have] to work like a 10 a. m. to 2 p. m. shift if he got a retail job,” she said. “I’ve worked retail. They don’t like that.”
Kassidy Brown, CEO and executive director of non-profit The Light House in East Lyme, agreed. He said his agency had about 40 vehicles, and that he’s had to keep going back to the board of directors to ask for more.
Brown said the agency began providing transportation for their clients in 2017, out of necessity. Their students, he said, were being kicked off vehicles owned by transportation vendors because of their disruptive behaviors. The Light House now provides transportation for most of their school-age population and for their adult services.
“There really is not any public transit in eastern Connecticut to speak [of]. That is a huge barrier for employment in our region,” he said.
Brown said they train clients to use Uber, but noted that it was extremely expensive. He said they try to be creative when possible.
“I have one guy who drives a moped, and that’s been an awesome solution for him. It sucks in the rain, but he uses ride share if there’s inclement weather,” he said.
The other problem is the expense. Brown said that funding they received from the Department of Developmental Services wasn’t enough to cover transportation costs, creating a “pretty significant deficit.” He also noted that the cost of gas had increased in the last few years.
The new law includes a pilot program providing transportation to the Northwest Corner, where State Rep. Jay Case, R-Winchester, one of the bill’s main authors, says that public transit is sorely lacking.
“In the northwest corner and in the rural areas of Connecticut, we don’t have transportation for special needs. We don’t have bus service. We don’t have that,” said Case. “This was to enhance transportation, because if you’re going to have housing and special needs, you have to have a way for them to get around.”
The bill also requires the state Department of Transportation to study the transportation needs of people with intellectual disabilities across the state, and to consider expanding public transit hours and providing compensation for employers or coworkers who arrange transportation for workers with disabilities. The study is due to the legislature in January.
“This huge, untapped talent pool”
As legislatures grapple with incentivizing businesses to hire neurodivergent youth, a handful of small businesses across the state have sprung up with the express purpose of doing so.
Valerie Jensen, founder of the Prospector Theater in Ridgefield, said she wanted to provide more opportunities for people with disabilities to find meaningful employment.
Jensen told CT Examiner that the theater currently employs 125 people, about three-quarters of whom identify as disabled. They do everything from art and production work to manning the concession stand to ushering.
“We’ve found just a great need to be able to offer these jobs to people, and to really showcase to everyone who comes in to visit the theater the capabilities and the employability of people within our demographic in this huge, untapped talent pool of very talented, very eager, very employable people that are usually overlooked and are either invisible or just absent or invisible in the workforce,” said Jensen.
Jensen said that Prospector is “overwhelmed” by the number of applications they receive, and said it highlights the need for other businesses like hers to open in the region.
She said that she imagines other businesses might hesitate to employ people with disabilities because of the potential cost of making accommodations. But Jensen said accommodations can be relatively inexpensive, and that technology makes them easier than ever. She gave the example of one of her employees, who is non-verbal, who is able to use an iPhone linked to the theater PA system to make announcements.
But Jensen said there’s another barrier — the social challenges.
“Many people are kind of afraid of even speaking to people with disabilities. They’re afraid that they’re going to say the wrong thing, they’re not going to know what to say,” said Jensen.
She said the solution is having the public interact more with people with disabilities at businesses like hers, and to include in business schools education about the value of hiring these workers.
“Once you’re able to not see people with disabilities as people with disabilities anymore, just seeing them as people, I think that they become much, much more employable,” said Jensen. “You see what assets they are to your company — in company morale, in the way that products and services are delivered and the beautiful reception that your customers are given and their reaction to people working with disabilities.”