8 · SATURDAY, AUGUST 26, 2017 LENDINGAHAND READY, WILLING & ABLE #IWantToWork campaign boosts people with disabilities seeking work For many high school students, getting that first paid job is an important step into the adult world. They learn the satisfaction of earning one’s own money, develop a greater sense of responsibility and begin to build the skills they’ll need for independent living after graduation. For Josie Badger and countless others with disabilities, however, getting a job at McDonald’s or Dairy Queen wasn’t an option in high school. Even for college students and graduates with disabilities, finding work can still be difficult. “I have a ventilator, I’m in a wheelchair and I have 24-hour care, so I didn’t have a paying job until I got my master’s degree when another disability group said, ‘We could use you,’” Badger said. “It took a disability provider to say we want you to work for us, and that’s not OK.” Now, Badger manages #IWantToWork, a social media self-advocacy campaign that is trying to make Pennsylvania an Employment First state and ensure that anyone who wants to work has the choice and the opportunity to do so. The bipartisan Employment First legislation was introduced as House Bill 1641 in the state House of Representatives in June and Senate Bill 21 in the state Senate in July. “I think overall, people recognize that this bill makes sense, whether you’re on one side of the aisle or somewhere in the middle,” said Badger, 33, who is also youth director at Pittsburgh’s South Side-based PEAL Center, co-director of the national RAISE center and a certified rehabilitation counselor with a doctorate from Duquesne in health care ethics. “It makes sense that if people want to work, they should have the right to work. It allows them to not only use their gifts but also allows them to contribute to society.” The #IWantToWork campaign was born out of a United Way of Southwestern Pennsylvania program called 21 & Able that helps individuals with disabilities transition from high school to adulthood. As the people involved with that program, as well as the Pittsburgh-based Campaign For What Works, began to identify the barriers that can make that transition difficult, they recognized the legislative changes that could help remove some of those challenges. They tapped Badger, who had been involved with 21 & Able, to spearhead a statewide campaign because they knew the message needed to come from the individuals whose lives would be impacted, she said. “Right now we have five young professionals with disabilities that do a lot of the feet-on-the-ground work, and they’re spread across Pennsylvania,” Badger said. “We also have a coalition of professionals that work in different areas throughout the state that believe in this message and are making sure the message gets to legislators.” One of the campaign employees is Lewis Hall, 27, who lives in Chester County on the eastern side of the state. He joined the campaign as the digital community manager in the spring of 2015. A Penn State graduate with a degree in business administration with a focus in finance and accounting, this is his first job outside of working in the family business. He agrees that having people with disabilities driving the campaign helps reinforce the message they want to convey. “We can put all the legislation we want into the books, but people need to see people with disabilities actively doing the work,” said Hall, who has cerebral palsy. “If you see that I can be a social media manager for this, why not for Nike, just to throw a name out there? My disability has nothing to do with my performance. It’s important that people see yes, we can do this, and no, it’s not just a pat on the back. We’re actually effective, and we’ve had legislation passed.” Last year, House Bill 400, known as the Work Experience for High School Students SUBMITTED Josie Badger (left) and Josh Strainx (center), take time out for a photo with Senator Bob Mensch (R-Pennsburg) who introduced Employment First PA legislation in the state Senate. BY KAREN PRICE with Disabilities act, passed unanimously through the Senate and House and was signed into law by Gov. Tom Wolf in May 2016. Act 26 makes sure that the Department of Labor & Industry’s Office of Vocational Rehabilitation, or OVR, works with schools and employers to help high school students with disabilities find paying jobs in order to help them build skills and gain real-world experience prior to graduation. Something still needed to be done, however, for those people already out of high school. “All of the individuals with disabilities who work for the #IWantToWork campaign are either in college or have completed college, but many of them either had very minimal job experience with a minimum wage job or no experience,” Badger said. “So we said, ‘What happens for us, and for the hundreds of thousands of individuals in Pennsylvania who are already adults and won’t benefit from that bill?’ That’s where the Employment First Pennsylvania bill came from.” The Employment First legislation, which is similar to what 22 other states already have adopted, aims to facilitate the inclusion of
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