Employment for People with IDD

Since the late 1960s, Missouri Extended Employment Sheltered Workshops have been a key service for people with disabilities and their families. Missouri’s workshops not only provide employment for thousands of state residents, but they also help improve their quality of life through an amazing array of activities and services.

But first, who are the people served in workshops? Most workshop employees have been diagnosed with an intellectual and/or a developmental disability or other recognized disabilities. Other recognized disabilities include mental illness, head injury, blindness, deafness, seizure disorders, and physical disabilities.

In Missouri, how this is arranged is unique. The Missouri Model provides employment opportunities and activities that, in many cases, would require massive state and local subsidies without workshops. In many, even most cases, these services did not exist before workshops were founded – often by parents and other supporters. The chance to earn a paycheck while practicing job and life skills is a benefit for Missourians that is virtually priceless.

Workshops also form the backbone of an important network of services that frequently begin in public schools. Workshops often operate their own skill-development and training programs that can help these employees train for community employment. If community employment doesn’t work for them, the workshop remains a welcoming option. Workshops are among the most experienced organizations in Missouri when it comes to working with people who have developmental disabilities, and their support staffs are a proven benefit to employee success.

In addition, workshops also provide a nucleus of advocacy and family support. In nearly all instances, workshops were among the earliest organizations founded by parents for this purpose, and they have spent years listening to the needs and wants of people with disabilities and their supporters. They have developed the support network to translate those needs and wants into meaningful services. This includes development of self-advocacy skills so that people with disabilities and their families can stand for themselves.

Workshops remain actively involved with state and private service leaders to implement “extra” services such as day activity programs, assessment and evaluation systems, and community integration.

Missouri Extended Employment Sheltered Workshops are proven leaders in enabling people with disabilities to access a variety of vocational and personal options through direct service or referral networks. While employment opportunities are among the most important workshop efforts, they are far from the only services for people with developmental disabilities.