♫ gentle plucking music ♫ TILLMAN: My name is Tillman Mitchell, and I live in Vicksburg, Mississippi, with my mom and my little brother. DOROTHY: My name's Dorothy Mitchell, Tillman's my son. Grew up, real nice kid, graduated and everything from high school. It was after graduation, about, think a couple of months later, they signed him up for Midd West, and they started him out there. JOAN: My name is Joan Farish, I work at Midd West Industries. It is a sheltered workshop. Participants are actually able to come onsite every day, and they work, we recycle paper and plastics. DOROTHY: I said, "Well, that's nice, he'll be able to get out the house, won't have to sit around the house all the time." He find something to do with hisself. TILLMAN: It's okay. (INTERVIEWER): Why is it only okay? ♫ music continues ♫ TILLMAN: (contemplative humming) It's just, it's okay. CHERYL: Schools are supposed to develop a transition plan for individuals with disabilities so that when they exit the school system, they either go to work, or some other appropriate post-school activities. We know from our work doing sheltered workshop monitoring around the country, that most of these individuals go directly from the school system to the sheltered workshop. MARK: As soon as they get ready to graduate, we give them an opportunity through the transition programs to go tour the sheltered workshop and say, "Look at this, this is great." STEPHANIE: You'll see the richer high schools have so many more resources, and then the poorer areas... What do we do? Oh, sheltered workshop. CHERYL: So their thinking is that if they go to the sheltered workshop, they will get the services and supports that they need there to move into post-school activities. Unfortunately, that doesn't happen. What they end up with is a sub-minimum wage job in a segregated setting without the opportunity to talk about real work. LE'RON: My name is Le'Ron Jackson. When I was in the sheltered workshop, they had me bending over, putting clothes in a barrel. I have CP, so I couldn't bend over and then get myself back up. It took me a while to get myself back up, or I had to ask somebody to get me up so I could reposition myself and then pick up some clothing, and then bend back down to put it in the barrel. That's real - - demeaning. When they matched me up with the workshop, it was supposed to be just for a limited time, but as you can see, some people get stuck. STEPHANIE: Looking at the reality, you will find someone in a sheltered workshop today who's been in that same sheltered workshop for years. So if this is a job training program, I'm not sure how long it takes to train someone, but I think it's a bit excessive. TILLMAN: I went, I worked at Midd West 15 years. The first job I had, and I've been down there too long. DOROTHY: So they said they was gonna find him a job, and they did that. (INTERVIEWER): When did they say they were gonna find him a job? DOROTHY: Uh..they started last year, looking for him one. TILLMAN: I went down for my interview, they told me I got a job, and then I liked it. I clean up. Sweep, vacuum the floor, and then wipe down the vending area, pull the trash. And I love it, because I like to work out in the community, make good friends, new people, get paid more money, 7.25 an hour. Help my family and them out. ♫ gentle plucking music ♫ (INTERVIEWER): So why, why did it take 15 years for Tillman? DOROTHY: I have no idea. Wish they would've had started training him in school to do things like this, how to go out and get a job on your own, probably could have gotten one right after. MARK: We've set up a pipeline to sheltered employment that starts at a very young age, where we start working with children with disabilities and telling them how limited they are. STEPHANIE: Well, there's a ton of alternatives. We could start with a transition plan that, with teachers and parents all getting together and understanding that this person has more value than 25 cents. ♫ cheery bell music ♫ SARA: I am Sara, I am 23 years old, almost 24. I'm in the shipping and receiving at the Boston Children's Hospital. When we first get there, we will have our meetings, then we'll start delivering all the packages, all 13 floors. It's super busy all day. It is a tough job, but, doing pretty awesome. (SCOTT): My name is Scott Frost. ROBIN: I'm Robin Frost, we are Sara's parents, yep. We live in this little town on the sea coast of New Hampshire, which you could basically throw a rock and hit Massachusetts. Though Sara was in this community, she wasn't part of it, she didn't have any friends, she wasn't, she was never picked for any teams, she, small school, everyone would get off the bus to go to a birthday party, and she was still sitting on the school bus, and, she got that, and granted, Sara has more advantages, the end of the day, she does have disabilities. I felt that she deserved more, and I could do better. TONYA: My name's Tonya Hart Newkirk, and I am the PDMS Account Manager for OneSky, and I also am a Service Coordinator. Sara had some real goals ever since she was little, I think around the age nine or 10 is when she started talking, and one of the things she always talked about was really wanting to work at a hospital, specifically Children's in Boston, and we have our transition team here at OneSky that works with adults starting at age 14 until they turn 21, so that transition team and the high school had brought this program to Sara and her family's attention, and they all had decided that that would be a good fit for Sara. ROBIN: OneSky Community Services did support her with what they called vocational training, more vocational training, and then still wanting just a little bit more, we sent her to the Institute of Community Inclusion at the University of Massachusetts in Boston, Mass., and there is where she did her internship at Children's, and then was hired by Children's. SARA: If I didn't have any access to those programs, I'll be just sitting at home doing... nothing. And I don't like doing nothing all day. COWORKER: Can you handle it? SARA: Yes. COWORKER: I know you can. SARA: I am super proud of my job, because I love being at my job, getting me going. See you tomorrow. ♫ gentle plucking music ♫ JOAN: When our kids get out of school, a lot of them, where else do they have to go, but to come to the workshop, because they have an opportunity to learn, to be trained. LE'RON: When I was in the sheltered workshop, they told me, "Well, this getting you ready for a job." I said, "I'm already ready for a job." ♫ slow electronic music ♫