To Find Jobs for Those with Intellectual Disabilities, Parents Get Creative
November 30, 2018
By: Josh Kovner, Hartford Courant/TNS
Source: Disability Scoop
SIMSBURY, Conn. — Noelle Alix and her daughter, Cate, 21, had been all over Simsbury, looking for a job for Cate.
Cate is friendly and outgoing. She’d been voted prom queen at Simsbury High School, and had recently graduated. She was now at the age that scares the heck out of parents of children with an intellectual disability: At 21, all of the mandated school services stop and, quite suddenly, families face some cold realities: The unemployment rate for people such as Cate, who has Down syndrome, tops 80 percent.
“We put out job applications all around town,” said Alix, a lawyer and author. “Little City Pizza was the one business that gave her a job interview.”