Name: Carmen A. Ferguson
Age: 52
Position: Executive Director, Projects With Industry, Inc.
Background: Came to Projects With Industry in 1989, after having worked
as residency coordinator at Memorial Hospital. Before that she had worked for
several years at the Massachusetts Department of Labor and Training.
Education: Georgetown University (1970)
Family: Married, one daughter
Residence: Smithfield
Projects With Industry of Rhode Island is a non-profit corporation managed by a board composed of business and rehabilitation professionals. Its mission is to expand employment opportunities for people with disabilities through the creation of a working partnership between the business and rehabilitation communities. Since 1983, PWI has assisted more than 900 people with disabilities find competitive employment.
Rhode Island's Market Has Changed. Developers, Builders, Investors and Sellers Must Change With It.
By Emilio DiSpirito IV License Partner | Engel & Völkers Oceanside Leader | The DiSpirito…
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The Projects With Industry program model is a national program funded by the U.S. Department of Education, Rehabilitation Services Administration.
Members of the organization’s business advisory council include: Blue Cross & Blue Shield Rhode Island; Boston Financial; Brown University; Citizens Bank; FleetBoston; Greater Rhode Island Workforce Development Corporation; Johnson & Wales University; Lifespan; Raytheon; Roger Williams University; the state Office of Rehabilitation Services; and the state Office of Administration.
PBN: PWI has provided diversity training and assistance regarding recruitment and retention to several of Rhode Island’s most successful businesses. Those businesses that are proactively addressing diversity issues – what sets them apart?
FERGUSON: The good companies always make an effort. They come out and they want
their staff to learn about diversity issues. They have us come in and do diversity
training for them. When they hire someone, they do not shy away from a particular
disability. At the Fleet call center, they were making an effort to hire a woman
with severe disabilities — she hadn’t been able to work for a long time. They
worked with us to accommodate her. That is the best approach — not to shy away.
Other companies have brought us in and we’ve had roundtables to address staff
concerns about working with certain disabilities. That’s where the HR people make
an effort to bring us in and are advocates to removing people’s fears.
What message does a company send to its employees when it makes tangible efforts to hire people with disabilities?
Companies that are committed to diversity make an effort to bring in all kinds
of people.
That’s a buzzword these days, diversity. I’m sure a lot of companies use it to be politically correct?
Yes. Or they may have a different view of diversity. They don’t always think
of disabilities as part of their diversity effort. When you tell them that disabilities
are part of diversity, a light bulb goes off.
So companies often connect diversity only to the color of a person’s skin, or perhaps, their gender?
That’s right.
Do you continue to see examples of people discriminated against because they are disabled?
Yes we do.
Does that surprise you?
It’s subtle. When the ADA came about in 1991, some companies kind of backed
into the woodwork. It’s not so much outright, but they look to avoid contact.
You may call them up and explain what you do and people sort of say, ‘Oh.’ And
you don’t get a call back. People kind of hide from you. People discriminate because
they are afraid. A lot of it is that someone will be concerned about someone with
a certain disability because they can’t picture that person doing the job. People
are very afraid of mental illnesses — they feel they don’t know what is going
to happen. Anybody we are working with has been through a rehabilitation process.
We screen them and make sure they are ready to go to work. No one realizes how
many people are out there working with mental illness — because people don’t tell.
Are there adequate laws on the books to protect these workers — and are employers
in general aware of them?
There are some companies that wish we didn’t call them — that think maybe
we will go away. There are others that seek us out because they are truly into
diversity and they want their employees to learn.
Are companies as familiar as they should be regarding the ADA (Americans With Disabilities Act)?
When it first came out we found that people were trained — but trained by lawyers
on how to protect themselves from the ADA. So initially, that’s the way companies
knew it. Some companies are still in that frame of mind. But I think, as it has
become more of a diversity issue. For some companies, it’s not lip service. They
are really looking for diversity. They want to learn, not so much how to avoid
getting sued, but how do I find a qualified person who may or may not have a disability.
And also, companies are asking; ‘What happens when we have a key employee who
becomes disabled? Where do we find a resource to keep that person on the job?’
It sounds like you are at least seeing a trend where companies are reaching out for the right reasons?
Yes. When we did training before, we would call it ADA 101. People don’t want
that so much anymore. What they are saying now is: ‘We’re doing it now. But if
a person with this particular disability comes in, we’re not so experienced. How
will it work in this particular department? Will everyone accept this person?’
They are now looking at recruitment and retention and promotion issues more so
than the law. It has become a post-ADA world.
Does a tight labor market present to your organization an opportunity?
Yes. People that didn’t want to hear from us, do. People are much more flexible
now about qualifications. They don’t give someone a break because they are disabled.
They may give someone a break because they don’t have quite the skills they want
— like they would for anybody. With more companies, we are finding it easier
to get a foot in the door. But I get concerned when I hear any talk of a recession.
Not because it will be ‘last hired, first fired.’ I worry that the people who
are doing it out of desperation more than commitment will pull back and that resource
will be unavailable to us.
We know businesses are struggling to cope with the costs of health benefits. Is that a reason that some companies may get scared off from offering opportunities to people in your program?
I have never found it to be. Most companies know that hiring people with disabilities
does not raise health insurance costs. It’s more on the other side. People who
need medication — particularly people on SSI or SSDI — are afraid to lose those
medical benefits. Even with some of the new programs — the Medicaid extensions
and Medicare extensions — there is still the issue of that not paying for everything.
We see people who really want to go to work, but because they would be paying
$1,000 a month for medication, they just can’t.
How many people are you working with each year?
It’s been about 115 people each year over the past three years. Generally,
we have about 200 people that are on board and looking for work.
Is there a breakdown in terms of people with mental illness versus people with physical disabilities?
The majority of people that we have dealt with over the years have had a physical
disability. The number of people with emotional disabilities or mental illness
has grown. But we work with anyone who does not need an on-site job coach. By
that definition we work with very few people with mental retardation, but we work
with every other disability. About 14 percent of the people we work with have
a visual impairment. A smaller number have hearing impairments. We work with recovering
alcoholics. We work with people who have systemic disorders, brain injuries. It
runs the gambit really, and people with education from nothing to advanced degrees.
Why do you suspect that number of people with mental illness has risen?
There are more people who feel that they can come into the labor market, maybe
after being out of it a while. Because there are more services out there, people
who may have felt for years that they could not work, now believe they can.
Are you confident that PWI will make the same kinds of strides it has made over the past decade into the next decade?
I think so. One of our vision statements is ‘a barrier free world.’ That does
not exist right now. Not everybody is on board. People still have their misconceptions.
When we go into companies to do diversity training, we always say as a preface;
‘We’re not going to change everybody’s mind today. But we want you to think about
how you make your hiring decisions.’ People aren’t going to change until there
are more people in the workplace with disabilities. We know a woman who was the
first disabled employee at her particular organization. She says; ‘I know I’m
the token.’ I think over the next 10 years, no one will feel like they are the
token. There will be enough people out there so that no one will be standing out.
Rhode Island has just elected a Congressman who is confined to a wheelchair
— U.S. Rep. James Langevin. Does it help that he is so clearly in the public’s
eye?
Yes. Anytime, you can change the image of who people see doing what. A Congressman
in a wheelchair — that’s going to make a big difference.
