Having certain skills is needed by everyone to help with daily activities, but certain skills are required in order to find employment and on Wednesday local groups helped teach these skills to people with disabilities.
Sunflower Diversified Services along with Rosewood Services hosted a Disability Mentoring Day at the Stoneridge Country Club to help people with disabilities learn certain job skills to obtain employment within the community.
“This workshop helps develop skills and helps with becoming a good employee,” Rosewood Services Senior Director Vicki Schmitt said. “Also making this workshop into a conference helps with social skills that is also needed to becoming that good employee.”
At the conference Kansas Youth Empowerment Academy from Topeka gave a presentation on how to find a job and how to keep that job by developing good working skills and being able to perform the duty of that job to one’s best ability.
“These skills are very important to find work, maintain that job and to show to your employer that you can do the job even though you have disabilities,” KYEA Executive Director Julia Connellis said. “You have the right to be included in society and the responsibility to include all.”
Social media were also covered during the conference and how this can be used to find employment or how it can be used against someone looking for a job.
“Most people use social media like Facebook and Twitter,” Connellis said. “Even though these are great ways to be social with other people and even find work, but these sites can also be bad if your looking for a job because employers can find you on these sites and see if anything negative has been posted.”
Kansas Youth Empowerment Academy
According to the website, the mission of KYEA is to educate, mentor and support youth with disabilities to be contributing members of their community.
KYEA does this through many programs that is offered through the academy.
These programs include: Kansas Youth Leadership Forum, Faces of Change, Empower Me! Series, Mentoring Matters and community presentations.
For more information about KYEA, call 785-215-6655.