The Center's Workplace Disabilities Awareness Program conducts trainings for employees at all levels in for-profit and non-profit entities, including schools, health care providers, and public agencies.  We work from the premise that even executive suites most likely are comprised of approximately 20% of people with disabilities – the same as the national average.  Many of these disabilities might not be obvious, but they are real and yet do not interfere with successful performance.  This recognition – and the fact that virtually everyone requires some accommodation to work most effectively – helps businesses increase diversity, communication, effectiveness, productivity, and overall employee satisfaction. 

The Center’s ultimate goal is to have a positive impact on the culture of a workplace, because culture affects interactions with the public and enhances an organization’s standing in the community.  Moreover, the Center's program assists employers and employees to integrate and include workers with disabilities in the workplace.

The program is tailored to the expressed needs of the organization.  For instance, health care providers' interests are likely to be the interactions of their personnel with patients with disabilities; educational organizations' interests will probably focus on relationships with students with disabilities and their families; and the primary interests of many entities might be to inform and improve the workplace attitudes and culture for employees with disabilities.               

The program most recently was conducted for staff at City Year Boston, and will be a training component for the organziation's incoming corps members in the fall of 2010.  A truncated version of the program has been presented to lawyers and staff at the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Maine  and the Veterans' Administration Hospital at Togus, Maine.  The versatility of the program is shown by clients as diverse as senior personnel of a chain of fast food restaurants and the New England Region of the American Camp Association.