People with disabilities sometimes need services provded to them in order to find employment.
Roma Kidd, Executive Director at ARCO, believes people with disabilities can add value to the workforce and community.
ARCO provides services to children and adults with disabilities.
“With our adults we try to think about what is it that a man and a woman would need to be able to live fully in the community and that is typically a place to live, a place to work, friends in the community and a way to get there,” said Kidd. “So for our adults, those are the kinds of things that ARCO provides.”
Kidd explained that ARCO’s philosophy is people with disabilities who have a desire to work are already prepared to work.
“Our job is to figure out exactly what it is that they interested in, what they do well and match that up to the employment needs of the general business out there,” said Kidd. “We’ve been pretty successful with that.”
Kidd explained there are men and women who are working regular jobs across the parish and emphasized the important role transportation plays in them getting and being able to work those jobs.
“One thing about having employment is that you can do your job very well but if you can’t get there, then you can’t have that job. We do provide that transportation to insure that,” said Kidd.
ARCO provides learning opportunities for people with disabilities who are waiting to be employed, according to Kidd. Some of the opportunities mentioned by Kidd involves the chance to learn how to collecting and destroying private documents at ARCO’s shred site and Sassy Cats, which allows them to learn about basic retail.
The University of Louisiana Monroe Gerontology Program is holding a conference about disability advocacy on Oct. 1. The month of October is recognized as National Disability Employment month.
