Elise’s Story: How A Community Came Together to Support

Sep 29, 2020

[Subtitles available in English & Spanish | Subtítulos disponibles en español y inglés]

Video Description Link:

https://tinyurl.com/y2y3pala

Video Description:
A text insert appears: Elise’s Story, How a Community Came Together to Support. Elise, a white woman, signs in American Sign Language.
 
Speech:
I had a specific situation where we had a student who was told that she would never work. She was told to go to Sheltered Workshop, where she could earn a partial rate because she was told she couldn’t work competitively.
 
Our VR counselors came into the picture and wanted to try and see what the outcome could be.
 
So they set up a case where she could work in a pet store with a job coach for support for two weeks, and that worked well.
 
She was interested and wanted to be hired permanently, so we advocated and worked with the employers to work out a schedule to make sure she was comfortable because there were certain hours of the day that she could ride the bus.
 
She was what we would call a more vulnerable adult or student, at that time. We set up everything, supported her, and now she has been working for two years and is ready to think about trying community college.
 
She is still not sure, but that’s an example of how we fight for people and provide them with an opportunity, and not just accepting what someone has said to them if they say something like “you can’t work.”
 
No! Try. The operative word is ‘try’. That’s the key word.
 
I really believe that we can work harder to design around the person and their unique skills and interests.
 
We’ve also had people who, for whatever reason, their Bachelor’s degree was not sufficient and they needed to go on to earn a Master’s degree.
 
We take a look at the program, identify barriers and provide support, as long as the Masters is tied to a job goal that requires that degree.
 
Video Description:
NDC Logo appears above text, black lettering on a white background: nationaldeafcenter.org
 
“This video was developed under a jointly-funded grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) and the Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA) #HD326D160001. However, the contents do not necessarily represent the positions or policies of the federal government.”
 
Next to it, three logos appear. The first reads “IDEAs that Work” with an arrow drawing a circle from “IDEAs” to “Work” and the words “U.S. Office of Special Education Programs”. The second logo shows a red-and-blue star with text next to it that reads “TA&D”. The third logo shows a blue circle around a tree. In the blue circle are the words “U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION.”

Do you have questions? Email us at:

help@nationaldeafcenter.org

© National Deaf Center on Postsecondary Outcomes
Video licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0 International

Save This
Topic(s): eLearning
Type of Resource: Videos

Need Help?

Fill out this form to get help from the NDC team.  Can’t see the form below? Click here to contact the NDC team.