TORONTO, March 26, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Canadian Association for Community Living (CACL) believes that the assumption that people with intellectual disabilities can't work must be challenged.
Joining CBC's radio show The Current this morning, CACL's Executive Vice President, Michael Bach said "Canadians are stuck in a 1950's set of assumptions of how people with intellectual disabilities fit into society".
The Canadian Association for Community Living undertook a study to look at how we might chart a path from the infrastructure we have collectively built for sheltered workshops and activity centres, to supporting people to access the labour market and fully inclusive workplaces like other Canadians.
The findings from this study indicate that we must turn the infrastructure we have built in the direction of securing social and economic inclusion for people with intellectual disabilities.
Michael Bach calls on community leaders to ask for something different, to help show the way forward. "This is a community based issue, for which community-based leadership is essential" Bach said, with "thousands of people working for little to no pay, as they are concerned of losing their social assistance and losing their long term lifetime benefits".
To incite change and achieve social and economic inclusion, CACL, a national leader in inclusive practices, launched the Ready, Willing & Able (RWA) program in the fall of 2014, in partnership with the Canadian Autism Spectrum Disorders Alliance. "RWA is taking inclusive employment to a national level" said Bach.
Inclusive employment should be the answer for the 75% of people with intellectual disabilities, just like it is the answer for 75% of non-disabled adults in the workforce. To make it happen there is a great need for national employers in both the public and private sector to step up for inclusive employment, and for the federal and provincial governments to support those efforts.
The RWA initiative is designed to engage, connect and support employers, people with intellectual disabilities, and community agencies at the local, provincial/territorial, and national level. RWA promotes understanding and awareness among employers and the general public as to the value of hiring people with intellectual disabilities, and enhances the capacity of employment service providers to refer people with intellectual disabilities to employers and help them transition into employment.
For more information about CACL and the RWA program please visit www.cacl.ca or readywillingandable.ca
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About the Canadian Association for Community Living
The Canadian Association for Community Living (CACL) is a family-based association assisting people with intellectual disabilities and their families to lead the way in advancing inclusion in their own lives and in their communities. We do this in Canada and around the world by sharing information, fostering leadership for inclusion, engaging community leaders and policy makers, seeding innovation and supporting research. We are dedicated to attaining full participation in community life, ending exclusion and discrimination on the basis of intellectual disability, promoting respect for diversity and advancing human rights to ensure equality for all Canadians. CACL is a national federation comprised of 13 Provincial & Territorial Associations for Community Living, 400 local associations, and over 40,00 individual members.
CONTACT:Kimberly Carson
National Director of Development & Communications
Canadian Association for Community Living
Kinsmen Building, York University
4700 Keele St., Toronto, ON M3J 1P3
Ph:416-661 9611, x 239
kcarson@cacl.ca
www.cacl.ca