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Episode 16: Nicholas Wyman – Disability Inclusion in Apprenticeship Programs

Let’s Get to Work: Reimagining Disability Inclusive Employment Policy

Release Date: 06/13/2023

Episode 21: Long COVID: An Emerging, Essential Research Area

Let’s Get to Work: Reimagining Disability Inclusive Employment Policy

Tune in for a conversation about research into long COVID with Dr. Vidya Sundar, Associate Professor of Occupational Therapy at the University of New Hampshire, and Debra Brucker, Associate Professor, Institute on Disability, at the University of New Hampshire.

Episode 20: Long COVID and Disability Employment Policy

Let’s Get to Work: Reimagining Disability Inclusive Employment Policy

This episode features a conversation with Sharon Rennert, Senior Attorney Advisor for EEOC about long COVID and disability employment policy.

Episode 19: Accommodations in the Era of Long COVID

Let’s Get to Work: Reimagining Disability Inclusive Employment Policy

This episode features a conversation with Yana Rodgers, Professor in the Department of Labor Studies and Employment Relations in the School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers University and Jennifer Cohen, Assistant Professor of Global and Intercultural Studies at Miami University about accommodations in the era of long COVID.

Episode 18: Advocating for Long Haulers

Let’s Get to Work: Reimagining Disability Inclusive Employment Policy

Tune in for a conversation about advocating for COVID long haulers, with Andrew Wylam, President and co-founder of Pandemic Patients.

Episode 17: Mason Ameri – Disability and Telework: An Encouraging and Concerning Trend

Let’s Get to Work: Reimagining Disability Inclusive Employment Policy

It is safe to say that the shift to remote work during the pandemic has transformed the outlook of disability employment not just for the near future but for years to come. Above all, the emphasis on telework for the general workforce has deconstructed the notions that led many employers to hesitate to provide workers with opportunities to work remotely, Mason Ameri, associate professor at the Rutgers University Business School, said. In this episode, Mason discusses the future of work, particularly relating to telework and what it means for people with disabilities. He reflects on the...

Episode 16: Nicholas Wyman – Disability Inclusion in Apprenticeship Programs

Let’s Get to Work: Reimagining Disability Inclusive Employment Policy

Disability inclusion in apprenticeships has long been lacking, but in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, Nicholas Wyman, executive director of the Institute for Workforce Skills and Innovation, sees an opportunity to change that. Apprenticeships are grounded in the same experiential learning that many with disabilities benefit from, but have historically excluded disabled people, particularly those with significant disabilities. It is essential to disrupt and reverse this trend, and coming off a pandemic that altered the entire workforce, employers have an opportunity to reevaluate hiring...

Episode 15: Ari Ne’eman –Unraveling Disability Employment Statistics: Impact of COVID

Let’s Get to Work: Reimagining Disability Inclusive Employment Policy

The numbers demonstrate the extraordinary impact the COVID-19-induced shift to expanded telework had on the employment opportunities for people with disabilities, but even those don’t tell the complete story regarding what remote work means for disability employment. It is a situation reflective of the gains prospective employees with disabilities experienced because of the pandemic and the parallel economic recession, Ari Ne’eman, doctoral candidate in health policy at Harvard University, says in this episode. The overnight shift to remote work for much of the general workforce because of...

Episode 14: Lydia X.Z. Brown – Envisioning a Future of Disability Inclusion

Let’s Get to Work: Reimagining Disability Inclusive Employment Policy

Lydia X.Z. Brown has seen initiative after initiative and has grown frustrated with the lack of investment in human potential and the emphasis on a social services system that continues to trap many people with disabilities in poverty. Brown, director of public policy at the National Disability Institute, joins the show to discuss the disability benefits system and how to address the socioeconomic issues that most prominently impact disabled people. They discuss how there are reasons that the unemployment rate for disabled people is double than it is for nondisabled people and why there is a...

Episode 13: Re-Evaluating Support Systems for People with Disabilities

Let’s Get to Work: Reimagining Disability Inclusive Employment Policy

Zach Morris, Assistant Professor, Stony Brook University School of Social Work, calls for a re-evaluation of the systems in place to support people with disabilities. We must recognize that people with disabilities not only earn less than people without disabilities. They also face extra expenditures to cover disability-related out-of-pocket cost.

Episode 12: Increasing Employment Outcome

Let’s Get to Work: Reimagining Disability Inclusive Employment Policy

Lisa Mills, Owner, Moving to a Different Drum, Disability Policy and Services Consulting, discusses opportunities to increase employment outcomes by braiding and blending resources across funding sources such as vocational rehabilitation, Medicaid, and Ticket to Work.

More Episodes

Apprenticeships are grounded in the same experiential learning that many with disabilities benefit from, but have historically excluded disabled people, particularly those with significant disabilities. It is essential to disrupt and reverse this trend, and coming off a pandemic that altered the entire workforce, employers have an opportunity to reevaluate hiring practices in apprenticeship programs and beyond.

Wyman discusses the importance of investment, at local, state, national and even international levels of government, in apprenticeships, especially as it relates to people with disabilities. He discusses structural and attitudinal barriers that have historically prevented people with disabilities from participating in apprenticeships and argues that additional investment is necessary and shares his experience with learning of the impact that apprenticeships can have for individuals with disabilities and the disability community collectively. He highlights that apprenticeships can not only help alleviate the disability employment gap, but they can also help individuals with disabilities find meaning in their lives from a more universal perspective. In doing so, he describes the constant emphasis on employee background and how it hinders the opportunities people with disabilities have for employment more than it ensures applicants have the skills they need for jobs, even within apprenticeship programs.

These are reasons and opportunities for the government to improve its investment in apprenticeships, he says. However, improvement will require changes and a recognition of the role apprenticeships could play across society and the approach other nations, including Switzerland and Germany, take. Such changes would make a difference in addressing the disability employment gap, but they won’t happen if the US continues its “program approach,” where individual programs are arranged in different directions. Wyman discusses how there needs to be more of a systematic, unified approach to ensure apprenticeships and the impacts that would have on the disability community are widespread and long lasting.

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