Disability Mentoring Day
What is it?
Disability Mentoring Day is a large-scale, broad-based effort designed to promote career development for students and job seekers with disabilities through hands-on career exploration, job shadowing, and internship or employment opportunities.
This program is hosted nationally by the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD) in close partnership with the U. S Department of Labor's Office of Disability Employment Policy. Visit their web site to learn more. www.aapd-dc.org
What are the Goals?
- To enhance internship and employment opportunities.
- To promote disability as a central component of diversity recruitment for a more inclusive workforce.
- To dispel employers' fears about hiring people with disabilities.
- To increase confidence among students and job seekers with disabilities.
- To serve as a launching point to promote a year-round, national effort to foster mentoring and career exploration opportunities.
What Happens on Disability Mentoring Day
- One-on-one job shadowing. Mentees with disabilities are matched with workplace mentors according to the expressed career interests.
- Group Visits to Worksites. Mentees can tour a workplace, meet with its various employees, and learn firsthand about different types of jobs and related opportunities within that career field.
Benefits of Participation
Students and Job Seekers- Explore possible career paths
- Demonstrate skills to potential employers
- Understand the vital connection between school and work
- Gain greater confidence in their own employability
- Gain access to a pool of new emerging talent
- Learn more about the experience of disability
- Develop lasting relationships with disability community leaders
- Demonstrate positive leadership in their community
How to Get Involved
In Utah the cities of Logan, Ogden, and Provo currently organize Mentoring Day activities during the month of October; Salt Lake City organizes their Mentoring Day activities during the month of April.
Organizing a Mentoring Day can be done in any community across the State of Utah where there are people who want to promote employment opportunities for people with disabilities.
For information about DMD in Utah contact: Leslee W. Hintze, Director of the Utah Governor's Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities; lhintze@utah.gov
For information about what other states are doing visit the American Association for People with Disabilities web site, www.aapd-dc.org