Battling Social Services and LD

Jorge,

Learn to play the game. Get a neuro-psyche test. Get a psych evaluation. Have your loved ones complain the the shrink about your “violent tendencies” “anger” and your “gun collection.”>>>> Now you’ve got their attention. Hire a scumbag aka lawyer and apply for Social security benefits. Sit back and collect the check.

Or you can do what I do. Work a sucky job and pray that you win the lottery.

Seriously, document your disability as best you can. I was happiest doing construction. I figured it about like this. My brain is unreliable at best. My body was better than average. I went with my strength until I sustained a neck injury. (not work related) Hopefully soon I will be self-employed.

Apply for work at those social service agencies and when they don’t hire you sue them for discrimination. File a freedom of information request and ask them how many disabled workers they have. Call your county executive and explain your situation, and threaten him with an ADA compliance audit if he’s a real A.H.

Employers have been ok to me when I disclose my disability. Ask them for a break. It’s worth a try. I have more faith in the private sector than I do in ths social service agencies. I’ve gotten so pissed at voc-rehab I’ve wanted to go there with a flame thrower. I think in order to work for a social sevice agency you need to be a direct decendant of Satan.

I suffered in poverty for the 10 years it took me to go from illiteracy to graduating w/ a Bachelors Degree and magna cum laude. I went without health and dental care, often had to choose between eating in the soup kitchen and missing a college class or starving and attending classes. I got NO HELP at all. Because I had no family that gave a crap about me and becuase I was NOT a single mom and therefore welfare eligible, I ended up financially dependent on an abusive mommy’s boy for lack of resources. After graduating college, employers did not want to give me, an older woman, a chance at the decent paying jobs w/ benefits because I was out of the workforce for 10 years. I finally was able to get sponsored to obtain my investment brokers’ licenses by a firm called Waddell&Reed, but it paid commissions only and no benefits. I can starve between commission checks and a slow coming client base all by myself and keep a larger portion of my hard-earned commissions. Shortly after 9/11, I went independent and am now struggling to build a successful business as a self-employed broker in northwestern PA. Throughout all of my ordeals, voc rehab failed to even try to place me in jobs and before I became a stockbroker, I could not get ANY help from the system. In light of 9/11 and its impact on those of us in the investments biz, I will be fortunate to be able to earn 20K this year. It is frustrating when I see others my age that got cushy jobs and did not have to struggle like we do. I even applied for civil service jobs only to be denied for lack of work experience even though I struggled hard for my degree so I could re-enter the workforce.

I’ve made the suggestion thatgovernment offer business real incentive to hire the disabled instead of forcing them to. LDers are generally vocationally disadvantaged. We get zero help. We could be productive enough all we are asking for is a hand up not a hand out. we end up getting the finger. VR is a disgrace so as I see it private enterprise is the only viable solution. Business solves the problems that government creates. I believe even the biggest corporate gangster has more compassion than VR.

I did. I suffered for 10 years in extreme poverty, not getting dental care or healthcare when I got stonewalled at getting help while convicted felons in the great state of PA got welfare checks handed to them the minute they left the prisons to enter halfway houses while in transition to parole. I have a clean record, never got arrested and never had any kids so I could not qualify for help when I needed it most, and now am a stockbroker struggling to get clients and thus earn commission checks so I can afford housing, food, utilities, and maybe some healthcare…….not to mention being able to repay my student loans. We all need to get vocal to the point of LOUD with our elected officials, hit the media, and not shut up or back down till our plights are acknowledged and something gets done. The squeeky wheel gets the oil……don’t be afraid to squeek loud and clear.

Folks:

This is what I mean by my post. DVR only sucks money like leeches and vernim. You ever see that old newsreel of the 1930’s where they have rats and cockroaches overrunning a town’s grain supply ? The employees of DVR : some of them, do not know how to be competent doing a real job. So who are they to judge us LD’s for failing and then asking to get useful training to obtain a good job to eat ! We need our Dr. King or George Washington to lead us to true independence. DVR vernim cuts you off from training programs before those have a chance to bear fruit for your labors. Average time is 84 days ! How do they expect miricles in that short time ? Their philosiphy is to place you in a job period ! McDonald’s or telemarketing is fine with them for statisics only. Yes, Ball maybe we should act like dummies, get a slime bag lawyer to stretch the truth for us to get what we need. Anybody agree ?

AA I agree comparing social workers and VR to Satan is insulting……..to Satan. Hell probably has some standards of decency how ever low they maybe. State VRs can sink even lower. Beside they’d put the Prince of Darkness out of business when it comes to pure evil.

Jorge, the whole system’s a farce. Milk it for what it’s worth. The VR agencies were set up in the 70’s when the federal gov told the states this: You don’t have to have voc rehab but if you do we’ll fund it. The federal gov created laws governing sort of. The VRs get around the letter of the law by creating policy that “complies” with the federal statute. however if they are not really in compliance or they violate their own policy they answer to no one. THAT”S WHY THEY SUCK!!!! THEY WILL NEVER NOT SUCK!!

AA, Jorge, Ball:
i think the bottom line is this: The state agencies like OVR/DVR and whatever VR are all corrupt. In the private sector, those who fail to do their jobs are fired, no golden parachutes (unless your a CEO). The problem really does boil down to politics because it is our elected officials, who dine and sip martinis in the finest resturaunts on public tax dollars, that comprise Appropriation Committees that in turn, disburse monies to agencies like the VR’s. The VR’s are not being held accountable for the funding they recieve, and therefore, those bureucrats called voc rehab counselors that get nice salaries and an air conditioned office plus health and dental coverage and pensions, have absolutely no vested interest in helping us get decent jobs and a shot at the American Dream, so to speak. They still collect their paychecks irregardless of whether we are jobless, homeless, suffering health/dental problems due to poverty or not. They exemplify the biggest welfare abusers their ever were: Getting $40,000+ per year salaries, medical/dental/prescription drug coverage, generous pensions…….without having to do a damn thing to earn it. I think VR caseworkers ought to be paid exactly like me: Commissions-only (at 2%), no health benefits. If I as an investment broker do not get clients, I make no money. When I do get a client, if I do not make them money on their account, I lose the client to a competitor broker and have an even harder time getting new clients because word does get around. If VR caseworkers got paid a crummy 2% commission only like us stockbrokers (no salaries and no benefits) if they got us chances at jobs, they would have to get us in at places better than minimum wage McDonalds or telemarketing jobs in order to have any sort of paycheck and they would have something to lose if they failed to help people with disabilities. I am in favor of letting our elected leaders feast upon that idea.

Wow I never thought of that one commissions. Yes that would give them a vested interest in helping those in need. The two best motivators are fear and greed. Yep make those slackers justify their existence. Actually their union would not allow it but maybe a non profit could do somrthing like commisions or incentives.

Folks:

I am tickled by the comissions idea. DVR union would never go for it though. Anyway, a better thought: The government should set up more than two DVR’s in the state. However, they have to compete with each other for buisness. No more slacking, reading romance novels or gambling online, no more surfing porn at the desk. If you do not like the attitude at one DVR you can go to another one for service. If the customer feels like it, they can cuss out the retart DVR counselor. Anyway, what do you think y’all ?

I think we ought to dismantle their union by power of vote, angry epistles sent to the pols on Appropriations Committees that directly fund the VR’s, and get madia attention for our plight: Not disabled enough to get government support, unless we are single mothers, but not deemed able bodied enough for the good jobs by employers who won’t give us a chance so that we can do what millions of other Americans do and take for granted every day: Go to work at a job that pays a living wage with health benefits.

Well, I don’t know what to say to you all but to first introduce myself. I work at a Social Service agency. As of July of 2001 I was first introduced into the world of Adults with Learning Disabilities through a program by the name of Bridges to Practice. In October I applied to be the Bridges Training Coordinator who would have the job to sensitize and train staff on issues such as the ADA law-section 504 in particular, diagnostic evaluations used to identify those with LD problems and planning for accomodations and strategies. I really try to give trainings to show my audience how it feels to be LD. But I’m so new at this I sometimes feel inadequent. Those that have been train are Social Service Workers, Employment agencies, and non-profit agencies. I am empathic to your concerns. I’m a babe at this but I live and breathe this program daily. I work for a very large Social Service agency in a fairly rich community on the east coast. I’ve hired two clinical psychologist who test TANF recepients for learning disabilties. I’ve formed four teams of professionals trained in Bridges to Practice, the Bridges Council who staffed each case. We then refer our LD adults to agencies that will help them become self-sufficient. HELP!!! I’m finding out that there are many problems besides the learning disability, such as mental health issues. I’ve recently made a smooth path for our BRidges tested adults to recieve help with mental issues. With the outcome hopefully being a significant boost in intellectual skills. The problem is how do I truly motivate an LD adult to help themselves after years of learned helplessness. I can arrange all the helping hands in the world and even the transportation to get there. But how do I get an LD adult to buy into the process. So you see things are being done. Programs are being implemented.
Help an advocate….

Advocate,

Atleast you realize that you are a babe in the woods. The helping the LD issue is complex and confusing. In fact Voc rehab in general is and will probably remain a farce.

Why are psychologists qualified to deal with LD? I know they have a lot of fancy buzz words but they can’t even agree what dyslexia is. Read the DSM. It’s as entertaining as a party game and about as useful. Psychology as we know it and call it is based on flawed concepts and illogic. Psychologists are some of the dumbest most pompous cretins walking the planet. The show Frazier hits the nail on the head. Maslow was crap. Freud was mostly crap. Skinner was dog crap with pig vomit mixed in. Stimulus and response is wrong.

Ask one of your shrinks to explain the P 300 response. Ask them to explain the role of the suprachiasmatic nucleus where it is located and how it relates to LD if it even does. Ask them to name more that 20 neuro-transmitters. Clinical Shrinks are scammers.

They are probably putting mental illness dianosis on people who are not mentally ill. Doing that is an excuse to justify the failure of this dreadful system. We are dissedants and often we get treated like former Soviet dissedants with the only exception being we get tossed into a different kind of prison.

I’d like to piss all over their Beamers while their in it with the top down. Squirt drizzle drizzle hee hee hee

AA,

Learned helplessness means blame the client for a system that can’t cut the mustard. That phrase sounds like the VR party line. An excuse for their failure and another way to make us feel like crap.

We don’t want that brand of assistance. We’ve seen way too many dog and pony shows from people called advocates who’s business is to exploit the disabled for profit. Don’t let anybody fool you. The non-profits are very profitable. Those slime can cook the books as well as Arthur Anderson.

Advocate, You already sound tainted. I don’t know if you are a no nothing hen with a JC Penny pant suit and a do nothing job with a meaningless title or some dude too low on grey matter to be a lawyer and too little testicular fortitude to work a manly job. Either way that snide insult “learned helplessness” tells me that you don’t get it. I bet the agency you work for is toxic and you are too naive to realize it. If your local pharmacy is having a sale on Ex Lax I’d suggest you stock up and distribute large doses to your co worker/slackers/goldbrickers

And advocate why not call us lazy shiftless watermelon eaters. OK massa

Listen here loud and clear Advocate:
“Learned helplessness” is a trendy buzzword that is highly inappropriate for this bulletin and those of us who are non-thinking-disabled enough to see it for what its worth. Apparently as a social worker, you were a social science major of sorts when you were in college. How did you do in Algebraic Topology, or was thinking your way through basic Calculus too hard for you? There are many obstacles we with LD have every day that your textbooks failed to mention. One is that for many of us w/ LD, it was due to our LD that it took many of us 10 years to get 4 year degrees, only to then be denied adequate gainful employment because of being out of the workforce that long in order to even be able to handle school, with absolutely no consideration on the part of prospective employers for the severity of obstacles we overcame in quest for the almighty degree. Furthermore, VR agencies are supposed to help those of us w/ disabilities, eg. LD included, obtain adequate jobs after education is completed. Their social workers have done less to help us than we have done for ourselves in our quest for an equal opportunity at adequate gainful employment. So why should the taxpayers who are middle calss pay for their salaries when we have essentially done their job? “Learned helplessness”=justification for corporate welfare for bureucrats. “mental issues”=bureucratic cop-out. By the way, excuse my typos. Being severely LD I cannot type any better. Which is why I, an LD woman, who is a mathematical prodigy, cannot get a salaried job w/ health benefits. But if you need assistance deciphering my message, I will be happy to give you a crash course in Number Theory whereby a word containing “n” letters has “n” factorial ways in forming a word. You see, I can think. I can outhink you, out math you, out perform your current 401(k) provider (derivative securities is one big math problem). I cannot spell, read quickly, do scantron format tests, be accommodated for PA teacher certification, or pass a typing test due to LD. I have been as many other LD’s have been, denied a fair fighting chance to make it with the gifts I DO have because of discrimination, poverty and lack of a level playing field in the job market. If you had my disability, along with my 180 IQ and mathematical prowess, and was at the mercy of the system you work for, you would see that no one here learned any helplessness, except that which we saw exhibited by over-paid, do-nothing social workers when all they ever do is say “Sorry, there’s nothing we can do to help you……”. I had to create my own job as an independent stockbroker/financial consultant, which is a commission-only paying “job” because VR social workers failed to even try to place me in a living wage job, after my 10 year struggle in poverty striving to get through college where I was not accommodated at all. Had I waited for their help, Hell would be freezing over first. Ball is right, you need to purge yourself and de-constipate your brain, only I reccommend a course in “Analysis of the Real Variable” instead of Ex-lax to do the job right. Study Euclid, Descarte, Euler, and Archimedes instead of proponants of social Darwinism and exercize your mind to overcome your thinking disability. If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.

To Ball and all that responded,
I apparently am trying to help and get a clearer inderstanding. Our strategies or buzz words may not be the best. My main goal here was to reach out to those that I’m trying to help so our program can make a difference and be effective. Thanks for the help… Why so much anger??? I can understand frustration, anxiety and tention,but I’ve read anger here. Sorry I will not try to get help from this forum.
Advocate

…and all they get is insults?

Sheesh.

I was just surfing around looking for voc rehab stuff and ran across this delightful board.

I have a couple of degrees, studied physics and rehab, and have worked in VR for decades and decades because I like to see people pursue their dreams and succeed.

Do I need to submit my IQ score before I can post here regularly? Want to see my transcripts? Want to see my bank balance? ROTFLMAO.

(Advocate - welcome to the struggle.)

John

P.S. - The idea of paying rehab counselors by the placement has been kicked around for decades. The problem seems to be that it will only encourage them to work with the so-called ‘easier’ cases.

Social workers aren’t hated for no reason. The whole idea of paying someone to apply common sense to help another is flawed reasoning at best. VR as AA pointed out has been and will continue to be a dismal failure. The reason for this is because it’s designed to fail in order to justify more spending. I have gotten nothing from VR but abuse. I regret not choking the crap out of the VR witch that screwed me over. Her boss was also a mealy mouthed weasel who needed to be stomped. Lying is a way of life for these scum.

It is also sickening that folks like AA and Jacqueline who were only looking for a hand up end up getting a fist in the face. Inspite of their disabilities they will leave the world a better place for living. VR slime are just plain negative and the world would be better off without them in it.

I’m surprised that someone hasn’t gone postal on VR.

Hey Advocate one thing that would be helpful to your clients would be if your agency provided them with a large jar of Vaseline.

Ball:

You are right in a point ! DVR is set up to fail people to justify more spending. The social workers are overworked, too few, handle too many cases in some instances. However, people I believe would like to have honesty on the part of DVR…. If you cannot help me get a good position out there: please say so there and then. Do not keep me dragging for four months or five wasting time and effort. It is not fair to the client. Any DVR people who won’t agree to that common sense needs to wear breast implants and be a mommy boy.

Advocate:
You wrote” I’ve read anger here…..won’t come back to his board for help…etc”. John chimes in with “VR counselors paid on placements encourages taking only easy cases….” VR has an bismal record for adequate job placements now and there is no incentive for further slacking, and no rewards for making the effort. Our anger is justifiable. You are one of those who gets to collect a nice paycheck w/ health & dental benefits at the expense of people like me, Ball and the others here, while those of us w/ LD got denied an equal opportunity for the same. If you can’t deal w/ it, maybe you ought to go work at a sucky minimum wage telemarketing job instead of the cushy social worker job you got, or work as a cashier in a supermarket, with no health benefits while your college degree goes to waste and see how you like it. Then you will know a fraction of the despair, anger and frustration I feel as a 35 year old LD woman who has a special talent ( I really am a mathematical prodigy) but did not get the chance to use it to earn a decent living. Those are they types of jobs you people seem to feel should be good enough for us LD’s. The only thing I ever heard out of my VR counselor’s mouth was ” I’m sorry……there’s nothing I can do to help you..”. Sure sounds like “learned helplessness” to me.

Meanwhile, I had to return home to an abusive ex-fiance, unable to support myself so I could leave a batterer, empty-handed for lack of help to get adequate employment at a LIVING WAGE. I was a victim twice over. I jumped through all the hoops and struggled to get my degree after being told to do so by people like you, only to get denied a shot at the American Dream and a $40,000 student loan debt. Seems to me that you think your job is difficult. Well, you can have mine. I will gladly trade you, but only for one day. My clients need ME to grow and protect their accounts. It is a responsibility I take seriously, and bear it with pride.

I am a stockbroker/financial consultant, struggling to make a living in post-9/11 and post-Enron conditions. I had to pay for the post-bachelor coursework and exam licensing & bonding fees ($2000) to get the licenses….OVR did not help me get this job, I helped myslef, with NO support from them at all. I would not have ANY job if I waited on OVR’s placement help. The last time I got to earn a “paycheck” was 3 months ago when I finally landed a nice sized investment account, after having to flee my abusive ex, 500 miles across state, with only my clothes and car, starting all over with nothing, working out of my dining room in my new house as I can’t afford the trappings of a broker-image, and hence often am not taken seriously as the kick-ass broker that I am. I am paid commissions-only, no health/dental benefits. And if one of my investment clients loses money in the stock market, I am held liable as their broker. I can be sued by the client and sanctioned by the NASDR (National Association of Securities Dealers Regulators). I must make judgment calls on the turn of a dime regarding clients’ life savings and if I don’t get clients, I get no commissions, hence no paycheck. Most of my time is spent pounding the pavement struggling to get clients, instead of in an office. My clientelle range from poor Erie County, PA dairy farmers w/ $1000 dollar accounts to one retired railroad worker w/ a $200,000 account. My take-down is a measley 2% on a buy transaction only. I have a great deal of responsibility with my “job”. You see, I have a job whereby I am paid to help others accumulate and manage wealth……so that they will NEVER know the poverty I have suffered and am suffering somewhat now. My clients never hear me tell them I can’t help them, because I will find a solution or die trying, and some of my colleagues did on the day known as 9/11. Show me a VR counselor with similar work ethic under the same pay and working conditions.

Back to my pet peeve accountability. Jacqueline is accountable to her client and to regulatory and licenceing agencies. I’m accountable to the EPA and all applicable laws in my proffesion. A few years ago in the Utica NY VESID office a senior counselor sexually assulted a female client. They did fire him but he was never arrested. Utica is a toilet but they did nail a woman named Mattie Brown on felony charges for cooking the books Head Start. She’s in the slammer. For the most part nobody ever gets caught. The scumbag at community action also got nailed He was a known coke head but not much will happen to him as his coke buddies in suits and ties and robes will give him a sweet heart deal. If you don’t have accountability and oversight all you’ll get is incompetence and corruption.

John:
In responce to “……all they get is insults”. You and other social workers get something that you obviouslly take for granted: A middle-class paycheck and health benefits plus a retirement plan. And you don’t get that on a commission-only basis, therefore where’s the incentive for clients getting adequate placement successfully via a VR social worker? The anger and rage here on these boards against trendy buzzwords (eg, learned helplessness) set forth by social workers, and others out to exploit the disabled, is justifiable. You and other social workers get to make out at the expense of disadvantaged LD’s and other disabled people needing and deserving an equal opportunity at jobs paying a living wage, like yours. Because of us, VR agencies are set up, hiring people like you, but they never hire one of us. I may have not been a social sciences major in college, but I have 35 years on-the-job life’s experience living with LD. My life experiences include turning a $2700 commission check into $11,000 trading it in my options account in order to buy a car to leave an abuser and start all over with nothing, 500 miles across state. My OVR caseworker who knew I was a domestic violence victim lacking family and resources, did nothing prior to that to help me get a salaried job after college so as to help me obviate economic dependency on an abusive man. Ball is right in calling people like my VR caseworkjer a slacker and a goldbricker.

In today’s society, the LD’s comprise a ready-made underclass whom the system you work for gets to benefit at our misfortune while we suffer, and get nothing except grueling poverty working in sucky jobs that are not enough to live on, belittlement from the so-called “professionals” by being told we exhibit “learned helplessness”, and watching the sun shine on everyone else’s day except ours. Given that statistacly, LD’s are over-represented by a factor of 85% in the PA prison system and the ranks of unemployed/under-employed, while being grossly under-represented in adequate middle-class paying jobs, we have a right to our rage. Our attitudes is the ONLY thing many of us did not get to lose at having in our lives. Deal with it or go take a job that is less of a struggle for you with less stress, like a $6/hr cashier job in a supermarket with no benefits and not enough to afford a place to live besides a homeless shelter. See how you like it.

Did Advocate personally harm anyone on this board? No. So why take it out on Advocate for what someone else did to you? Rude is rude. My momma taught me better manners than that.

So you say, John, “Deal with it.” Everyday at work, folks, that’s what I do. Deal with attitudes. Yours, mine, the employers, the co-workers. If all I cared about was the $$$ and benefits, I would have gone into a better-paying line of work.(I started at $9168 a year with an M.S. The same job now pays $26722 to start, as required now by the feds, an M.S.) Hell, teachers make more money around here from day one and get summers off.

Next. Just for the record. No social workers here, to the best of my knowledge. The social workers I’ve known think that they’re special and look down on an M.S. in Rehabilitation Counseling. Just for the record, you understand. I know what you mean when you say social worker. Even some of my friends who’ve known me for 25 years think I’m a bleeding heart liberal. Nope. Just someone who knows the importance of work and loves solving a variety of problems. Can I solve all of them? Of course not. No one can.

Remember. There is not one VR agency in the country that can, by force of law, MAKE an employer hire someone. We can only encourage them to hire and assist the consumer/client to prepare for their chosen vocational goal.

This job would be a piece of cake if we could simply give jobs away. Employer A, you will take these two people. Employer B, you will take these 6. Oh, what a dream. I have it every once in a while, but then reality intrudes.

I guess I could go back to tree service work, waiting tables, selling furniture, working at McDonalds, landscaping or a couple of the other jobs I’ve had, but I like what I do. That’s my choice, although after 28 in this business I think I could entertain the idea of a less stressful part-time job and a p-time retirement.

On the other hand, some of my co-workers (counselors, evaluators, etc.) do have serious disabilities and probably should not be included the ongoing references here to rehab professionals as lucky people with jobs and benefits who don’t know what it’s like to be left out. They do. I never liked the phrase “you people” either, whether applied to a group of rehab professionals or a group of persons with disabilities. It always ignores their individuality.

At lastly, to Jacqueline… Congratulations on your success in your new career. Really. About your demand to “Show me a VR counselor with similar work ethic under the same pay and working conditions.” You are, obviously, capable. Look it up yourself, I have better things to do. You’ve solved your own problems so far and would seem to be able to do your own research. If I need someone to boss me around, my mother will be 78 next month and I can always call her ;) Just kidding, sort of.

Later folks. It’s been entertaining.

John

John:
Considering the crappy hand life dealt me, you are very astute in observing my capabilities. However, the point was this: At what price. I should not have had to suffer loss of half of my real teeth by the time I reached the ripe old age of 32 for lack of resources to obtain dental care, unremediated permanent health problems due to hunger and malnutrition while I struggled on nothing for 10 long years to get my hard-won degree simply because some M.S.-holding, snooty, social Darwinist/elitist pig VR counselor felt it was too much trouble and effort for him to get off his fat ass and help me get some very basic human needs met I could not get for myself due to poverty from discrimination. Discrimination on 2 counts: Being a woman and being severly learning-disabled.

Furthermore, had VR and all the other social service agencies sucking up taxpayer dollars helped me in any meaningful way long before my last year in college, I would not have been so economically disadvantaged that I ended up having to live with an abusive boyfriend and his dysfunctional, cruel, manipulative mother for lack of having any other way out or to be able to make it on my own as a single woman with a disability with no family or anything for support. And they ended up forcing me out on the street with nowhere to go when my sum total earnings after 9/11 was a meager $2700 commission. Hell, a convicted felon in the state of PA has it better than I have had it and I never even got arrested for jay-walking!! At least felons get 3 squares and their health and dental needs taken care of. And they aren’t dumped out on the street, they get to go to halfway houses and get welfare help.

Or maybe I should have just gone out and f****d every Tom, Dick and Harry till I dropped a litter of 12 so I could then get medical assistance, free housing and food as a welfare queen. At least I would still have all my natural teeth, I wouldn’t have starved, been without heat in the middle of winter and maybe I would have better health than I do now, as a result of having nothing except getting to suffer for too goddamn long and getting no help all these years past when I desperately needed it.

Lastly, my LD makes it impossible for me to “read” people, and thus coupled with the economic disadvantages of poverty, I was easy prey for people to harm, in more ways than one. And believe you me, I have suffered more harm in my life than ANY human being should ever have to because of that. For you to make light of my situation with your snide comment that I “should do the research, I am capable…etc.” just reaffirms my utter contempt and distaste for people like you and Advocate, if you can even call yourselves people.

I would rank you at the very bottom of the food chain, as complete waste of human sperm that should make the world a better place, by committing retro-active abortion. The 9/11 terrorists f****d up: They should have driven those airplanes into the nearest VR office instead of Wall St.

To quote my previous post:

“Look it up yourself, I have better things to do. You’ve solved your own problems so far and would seem to be able to do your own research. If I need someone to boss me around, my mother will be 78 next month and I can always call her ;) Just kidding, sort of.”

Anybody see the ;) after “…call her…”? Know what that little smilely symbol means? And I was kidding, just like I said, sort of. I can take it and dish it out. Learned it from my red-headed mother :) <= = = another smile.

And rude is still rude, even if somebody thinks that they have a reason to be rude. Heck, I’m fighting the urge to be rude myself in an effort to fit in here :) :)

On the subject of LD expertise. Yes, I’ve had training - quite a bit in fact during the past 20 years. And lots of real life experience working with a wide variety of individuals, students and adults, with one form or another of a Specific Learning Disability.

If I have specific questions about SLDs I can walk three doors down the hall and get them answered. We have had an LD expert in this office for the past 15 years. That’s what she does - LD stuff - testing, diagnosis, counseling, career exploration etc. And she is not a caseload counselor with all of the attendant caseload distractions and time drains - just a wonderful resource for the clients and staff.

John

P.S. - The “Later folks, it’s been entertaining.” comment was originally, as best I remember it before I edited my post to shorten it by a third or so, “Later folks, it’s been entertaining, but I haven’t learned much to help me help my consumers achieve their vocational goals.”

P.P.S. - You don’t know me well enough at this point to criticize me. You might think you do, but do you? Jumping to conclusions is not good exercise :)

AA:

I apologize to you for offending you with my last paragraph of full blown rage at somoeone I felt attacked me and others like me. When I think of all the unnecessary pain and deprivation I suffered while nobody cared….and the belittlement I got when I tried to get the help that is supposed to be out there, John’s snide comments making light of my capabilities was the straw that broke my back. I lashed out with the only thing I felt I had left to strike back with, feeling temporarily vindicated….

I was so enraged, I could not even see my PC screen as the pain returned of all the years of suffering and doing without basic human needs while the VR people did nothing except waste my time with callous disregard…..it was just too much for me.

If someone, especially a person collecting a paycheck for supposedly helping us, is not going to give a hoot and just sit on their duff, the least they can do is not insult me and others in the same boat with more callous disregard and minimize the urgent, long overdue need for help and support, simply because 10 years later I am finally capable, but at a price that was too high to pay.

I came to this board because as an LD adult who has suffered so badly, I needed a haven of mutual moral support just to help me cope. The ridicule I got from profs in college classes I was going into debt to pay for while starving and doing without health and dental needs, the lack of consideration from social workers at the welfare office and VR case workers, the list is infinite….I felt as if I was personally violated all over again, almost like being raped, when Advocate and John came to the board with posts laced with what I percieve to be another cheap shot being taken at those of us with LD.

If people like John and Advocate and the thousands upon others out there like my VR counselor just want to minimize what many of us w/ LD have suffered economically, physically and emotionally, with their cruel cliches like “learned helplessness” and insensitive remarks about our capabilities despite getting no help, I’d just as soon see them do everyone a favor by going into some other venue of employment as opposed to making out at the expense of people like me. And if all they want to do is continue to make us feel unworthy and to blame for our LD related problems, they have collectively taken more than their fair share of cheap shots at us outside of these boards. Additional cheap shots here were not necessary.

Again, I agree with you that the way I verbalized the full fury of my rage encaptioned in the paragraph you pointed out does not belong on the boards, and I do apologize for the inappropriateness of its content. I will not, however, apologize for the anger and resentment behind it.

John:

The best thing you can do to really be of genuine help to your clients is not minimize their needs, their suffering, and to be on the forefront of aggressive advocating for them to the employers. Do your part in giving the A.D.A. some teeth, so to speak. Thhats my advice to you…..and no, I don’t comprehend all those funny looking symbols because as a dyslexic, decoding words with normal letters is hard enough.

John and Advocate:
May I give you some constructive insight as to meaningful communication that does not elicit anger from others, whether we are LD or not.

First off, take it from my experience. When you are poor, walking around with abscessed teeth and missing half your smile due to poverty that you would not be suffering but for gender and disability discrimination in the workforce, only to have potential employers then deny you a crummy sub-poverty wage job paying $6/hr because you don’t have a nice image, when you relay your urgent needs to the VR and welfare people who are supposed to help you and they tell you that they can’t/won’t even try to help and that you have to pull yourself up by your bootstraps when you don’t even have the boots to do it with, you begin to realize that “learned helplessness” is not a character trait of the LD client and to call a downtrodden LD client by that is unfair at best.

Before we become homeless, suffer more medical problems due to poverty, before we end up with jail being a preferred alternative to starving, freezing out on the street, losing our teeth because we can’t afford dental care, we tried to get adequate jobs, and the required schooling to qualify to apply for those jobs so that we can support ourselves. We tried to get help and support from our VR counselors to get placed in jobs and applied for many jobs all on our own outside of VR, only to get denied. The result: We go away empty-handed, getting nothing except getting to suffer, unable to provide for ourselves the most basic human needs, but yet unable to even qualify for welfare and rental assistance (which is humiliating for many of us to even be that poor that we need to apply for it) because unless you are a single mother or a convicted felon in the state of PA, you are deemed “able bodied”

But it seems to me that whenever we try the best we possibly can without the benefit of any resources, to do for ourselves and help ourselves, all we get is shot down just like Billy Bishop did to the Red Barron. No wonder so many of us get to the point where we are so fed up that we just want to throw up and give up. You can’t keep trying when you’ve got nothing left to try with, know what I mean?

Folks:

I have read this board and I feel alot of flamming and anger has happened. However, the anger is justified: period ! As for the refrences to 9/11-01, the people who treat that as untouchable….. We applaud you. Having said that, I just wanted to say DVR does nothing for the client that I am aware of. I had a friend who wanted to work for the Federal government and was disabled, he went to his counselor for help to get in. She told him…. I do not know anything about the government civil service rules. Well….. her job is DVR counselor suppose to find out this info to help her client. He had to look for this job on his own. When the time came for the certification. DVR obstructed him by delaying the written certification for about 1.5 month. Finally, the EEO coordinator, bless her heart: she mentioned to his contact in the government if the certification was not forthcoming….. she was going to have the DVR counselor written up ! Meaning…. the counselor would be blacklisted in the future for failing to cooperate with a request from Uncle Sam for certification of a disabled applicant. The people who say that we are “Learned Helplessness” do not know what that means… Spend a year having memory touble, or Auditory trouble, perception problem, Non Verbal LD or Dysphargia or Coordination problems. See how well you do in this unfriendly world. All it takes is for two or three bad instances of mistreatment of LD people and LD folks will start to generalize about their life experiences. For those of you who may laugh about the name above….Rest assured ! I am not related to “that person” who cronied with Adolf Hitler 60 years ago. However, we LD people sometimes feel we are being persecuted like a gypsy or a jehovah witness back in those days.

If you have time sometime your expertise could help me to help my son. I am sick of sped and psycos blaming him for their lack of teaching.

Thanks

Mamm;

you are right on that ! Too many psychos are screwed up themselves to advise your kid. Don’t waste monies on those people… Your son’s difficulties cannot be cured by those screwups. America is the only industrialized country in the world who spends alot of money listening to those losers ! Look at the results !

I agree Jacqueline saying that those rag heads should have driven those planes in to VR offices would be bordering on bad taste but I must admit that if they had I and many other VR victims been fighting the urge to dance in the street and bow to Mecca.

What I’d like to see are the numbers on VRs success rate.

I’ve been told that it is less than 20% but I have no way varifying that figure as the VRs guard it like Fort Knox.
Also, anyone who has a positive outcome probably did it inspite of VR not because of it.

As far as shrinks are concerned it’s a travesty that these puds are licensed professionals that get big $$$. I will say that neuro-psyche tests are of some value but should be viewed skeptically.

I think that VR meetings should be tape recorded secretly by the client. Catch them in their lies!!

The idea of commision is one I threw out quite a while back (3 years I think). It was a fee for service model where job coaches, counsellors, etc became independant contractors to a group of agencies. The agencies supplied the clientelle. Staff then would then submitt their hours to ODSP (Ontario Disability Support Plan) to recieve reinbursment after providing service the clients requested. It would have allowed clients to have a larger pool of people to choose, decrease wait times for service and increased staff salaries which were pretty poor.

Competent staff obviously would attract more clients and incomitent staff would have to actually try. Guess who were the one’s who disagreed.

Pushing all of you away? Not entirely accurate. More like keeping all of you at arms length after seeing what a number of you have written about VR employees, psychologists, psychiatrists, etc.

I’m not out to cure you, curse you or make you understand me. I just surfed by one day and saw an instance of abject rudeness that I felt like commenting on.

Many of my coworkers have highly refined skills, even in the LD arena, and, yes, we do have a variety of resources at our disposal for career exploration, aptitude testing, computer evaluations, etc. The LD specialist is a resource for us, but we all have skills in this area.

VR statistics can be very interesting to look at.

Here’s one. Seventeen (17) VR clients were sent appointment letters for the first half-day of group testing on aptitudes, interests, etc.
Of the 17, only 5 came in today. Of the other 12, one did bother to call to cancel and ask to be rescheduled. This is a constant problem.

Those seats could have been filled by the next folks in line.

John

P.S. - AA, Thank you for your concern, but I’m not looking for help. I have reached a point in my life where I’m going to call things pretty much as I see them and let the chips fall where they do. If someone benefits from what I say, fine - if not, that’s life.

P.P.S. - Jacqueline, Pardon me if I don’t avail myself of your offer on “…some constructive insight as to meaningful communication that does not elicit anger from others…” I’ve seen at least one example of your idea of communication and it wasn’t a pretty sight.

Out of those 17 clients perhaps 11 of them have already seen the writing on the wall. Knowing hwo VESID operates perhaps all those letters were not really sent so we can play blame the victim.

John what I’d love to see is your agency’s success rate with all disabilities. Of the few successes I wonder how many got help inspite of your efforts.

Clients just plain hate VR. It is so obviously a scam that to say it is not won’t even pass the giggle test. O.J. was innocent. tee hee hee………..

The philisophical view of VR and other social service agencies.

Let’s assume there is a God and a devil and the only way the devil can mess with God is by hurting his children.

Then it follows that the devil can most easily do the greatest anount of damage by picking on the weakest and most vunerable and those poorest in spirit.

Social service agencies are notoriously bad. WHY? Some of the so called non profits are just as bad as the state agencies. Could it be that they are just plain evil? I don’t think asking that question is that off the wall.

So John now you know what it’s feel like to be a turd in a swimming pool. Do you gain power from people hating you? I know your agency does

John:
About what you said of my angry comments not being a pretty sight: Well, seeing arrogance in the shape and form of an I-am-better-than-thou bureucrat wearing the VR hat is even less attractive to many of us with LD that are poor, have no financial resources to seek out the help that AA was able to get.

Recall, those of us with disabilities are the poorest people in the U.S.A. For those like me that have no family to care about/support them or husbands to support us, its even bleaker when all we have to turn to is a selfish, arrogant bureucrat that cares less about helping us because, after all, he/she has a paycheck and a place to live, so too bad for clients with nothing…after all “that’s life”, according to your philosophy.

Like those that struggle to afford a bus ticket in order to get to their VR appointments, only to sit there waiting for an hour or more and get treated like a child and belittled, or given the 5 million excuses from someone like you on why you can’t/won’t help us obtain either the resources (SSI, AFDC, etc) we need to keep roofs over our heads, basic medical/dental care, and food, or at least help us obtain the equal opportunity to earn enough to get those needs met with meaningful jobs so we can support ourselves and not end up homeless, suffering from more problems brought on by poverty of having absolutely nothing, not even the fair fighting chance.

But as you so aptly put it, “let the chips fall where they may”, you and others of your ilk are not homeless, suffering in poverty, getting nothing but denied job opportunities. You have your middle-calss job with health & dental benefits, and you obviously don’t care one iota about those of us who aren’t nearly as fortunate, whom you GET A PAYCHECK to SUPPOSEDLY help, only to sit there and refuse to help us in any meaningful way, and continue to send us away empty-handed. But according to you with your selfish, uncaring arrogance, you not being the one having to return to the homeless shelter, or substandard housing in the projects like many on $500/mo SSI checks or welfare, you say “that’s life”. Oh well, too bad, right?

Well even those who are poor, well informed, but penniless and voiceless, vote. And we can collectively squawk to elected officials who designate state/fed funds to the agency employing you, and effect budget cuts that would eliminate your job. I don’t know of too many private, for-profit businesses that can afford to retain slackers on their payrolls that don’t care about doing their job.

You do not deserve to get a paycheck for doing nothing except blaming the poor disabled client for being less fortunate than you, and then twisting and manipulating the whole thing around by saying we exhibit “learned helplessness” and thereby imply we have not tried to do anything to help ourselves.

You said that we are rude to you. As I recall, despite my dyslexia, I saw that AA was more than gracious to you in her posts, and you treated AA like nothing she said mattered at all, and that you did not need her help, insight or advice on dealing with your LD clients’ needs, which basically implied that AA knows nothing while enlightened, better-than-thou you are omniscient. Now that’s rude. AA was more gracious to you than you deserved and you treated her rudely. If your so great with such exemplary manners, why don’t you prove it…..by apologizing to AA? I think you owe her at least that much.

You say “I am not out to cure you”, well we all know that as of today’s date, LD is NOT curable. If it was, it would not meet the definition of a disability that affects one ore more major life activity.

With the devil-may-care attitude you exhibited to our plights on these boards, you obviously could care less about helping your clients who DO keep their appointments, before they give up after getting no help from you with job placement and job discrimination issues.

You say you just happened to spot our “rudeness” on these boards while Internet-surfing one day. Could that possibly have occured while you were on the clock, on taxpayer dollars, when you are supposed to be finding employment for the clients who DO show up? Nice to know that taxpayers pay for your web-surfing activities.

As I said before, even those of us with disabilities have the qualifications for a job like yours where all we have to do is web-surf, belittle the poor clients, and then say “can’t help you….can’t this…can’t that…and Oh well, that’s life”. I’ve got mine and too bad for you if you don’t, right?

On a final note, since it is blatantly clear to all of us that you are the typical VR deadbeat who cares less about our problems, and by extension, your LD clients’ problems, why even bother poking your nose into these boards where we are all LD adults struggling to support and help each other since we got nothing but arrogance and “learned helplessness” from the likes of you at our respective VR offices. Since you have nothing to bring to the table as viable solutions or legitimate questions, don’t waste our time, which is just as important as yours.

After all, you once said you have more important things to do with your time, right? So get going and go do those more important things with your time instead of posting condescending messages on these boards that only serve to inflame people.

We LD adults have more important things to do with our time than to acknowledge your haughty, condescending posts and if you continue in that fashion, we will simply ignore you if you persist in being part of the problem instead of part of the solution. We are about finding solutions and bettering our lots in life.

John,

I guess I’m one of those people you need to keep at arm’s length since I have LD (won’t be too hard, I live in Canada) but I’m in the same field as you. I can uunderstand what you are saying about people missing appointments but the bigger question is why. I don’t know your system or approaches therefore have no grounds no comment on them.

We went through the same thing a vocational program I used to work in. After talking with the clientelle they felt the service didn’t adequately meet their needs and they and I both agreed provided no real transferable functional skills for the specific field they wanted. We completly revamped our system in to a work experience/supported employment based model and a temporary staffing program for people with disabilities. My coworkers and I added functional courses (safety training, WHMIS (Canadian chemical safety system) and CPR/First Aid certification courses).

There still were people that still were unhappy but the majority had their needs met. I have seen some real problems in our field in an inability to be flexible and willing to change to meet client needs. Part of the fault I put onto all of us (myself included in that), part onto lacking of funding and lack of committment to keep staff adequately educated in new techniques and research.

In closing though John I’ve found alot of your comments to people here pretty condesending. With comments being thrown around like “you people” and thateveryone here entertains you. That really implies to me a sense that you see yourself above others here. I’ve dealt with hostility over years myself (swearing, punches, kicks, bites, etc) but have always kept in perspective that I’m helping people who deserve my respect and all of my effort to assist them in anyway possible. Maybe you should go back to landscaping, you certainly don’t sound like your in the right field to me.

Brad:

I am curious as to how you are able to help your clients overcome the catch-22 employers often throw at us, specifically, when the client is just re-entering the workforce and does not have the experience in their new career but they got the education. For example, what I had experienced was because of being out of the workforce 10 years after a car wreck left me unable to go back to construction, I struggled to get my degree. Dealing with a severe learning disability is why it took me 10 years to get the degree. Then after I finally graduated at age 34, nobody would give me a chance at all the jobs I applied for (on my own as well as the TWO referrals from my OVR job counselor)because I didn’t have any experience, only my degree and a willingness to work.

The economy is bad here in the states. In tough economic times, it seems that those of us at a disadvantage due to having a learning disability are the last ones to get a chance at the jobs. After struggling 10 times as hard to get the college degrees and/or professional certification, employers say” Well thank you for your resume, but we are only considering applicants with 5 years experience…etc”. You can’t get experience when nobody gives you a chance and in the meantime you still need to be able to live. Any suggestions?

Well we’ve flamed a couple of VR schmucks, now what?
Seems that the expertise, common sense and genuiness of folks like Brad is a compass for the next step. As VR/LD victims our next step is to become survivors/advocates. That is happening. I think the idea of reforming VR is an exercise in futility. VR should be starved out of existence. We need to stop complaining and start some sort of action. ORGANIZE ORGANIZE ORGANIZE!!! Write to every elected official often. Write to the heads of your state’s VR agency. In NYS the head of VR is Lawrence Gloecker his boss is Stephen P Mills who is head of NYS Dept of Ed. Mills answers to Governor George Pataki. Find out that info for your state. I will never seek the brand of help available from a VR but I will do whatever I can to put those scumbags on the unemployment line. Start orgs called VR Watch.

As someone with a son and husband who is LD I find this thread very informative. My husband is very successful despite only finishing 2 years of college. Jacqueline he too is a math genius. He started by working with PHD level mathmeticians doing actuarial work and showing them a thing or two. That and his above average social skill propelled him despite some serious deficits.

I have to think that the biggest factor in all of this is the support of a loving family, not rich, but functional (a rarity in this world) My husband came from this type of environment and luckily never had to rely on the very broken agenicies that are discussed here.

These agencies do seem like a continuation of the problems that are present in schools. I am glad my son will not need to rely on them.

I think with the right support mechanisms in place people can overcome LD and even thrive. It does take putting some things behind you. My husband does not dwell on the fact that he is LD, he dwells on his gifts.

Maybe this sounds trite but I do think that putting too much energy into negative emotions does not solve anything. The 9/11 thing really bothered me. I just have too many friends who were lost and know too many little children without dads. I come from a family of firefighters. I got a close up look at the devastation. I cannot even begin to tell you what it was like for them. Pulling out your brother’s bodies at work, and then going to funerals, hundreds of them, on your days off. How quickly we forget?

If you let people make you angry, they win. Resentment is like giving people free rent inside your soul.

Folks:

So far what have we learned: DVR is a bunch of fat, lazy civil servants who surf the internet probablly on “official time” and they blame us for “Learned Helplessness” ? What is wrong with paying them on comission ? Maybe they would work harder to place people in real jobs. AA forget about trying to get Advocate to read the recent post: Advocate has pre-cnceved ideas about LD people: no sense in teaching an old dog new tricks. We need to organize ourselves and rely on us not DVR. DVR only wants to believe what they want to anyway. They are a big waste of money as far as LD is concerned.

Benito:

I actually do believe in “Learned Helplessness” but not in the way others do. A good example - you try to ask me for help, each time you ask I make fun of you or yell at you, how many times do you think you will continiue to ask and simply go without help. Social services don’t yell or bite, the action is much more subtle. You want a job let’s say and I simply put the expectation on you with no real support to your needs and assume you have no real strengths. How successful would anyone be in a scenario like this and how long would it take them to get frustrated and give up.

I went through it and believed for alot of years I was stupid and would simply end up doing nothing with my life but drinking. I had to stop listening to others and fight for my self. But more importantly I had to unlearn all the negotive impressions I had about myself and recognise that I only had a problem and evry problem has a solution. It sounds simple but unfortunately, it wasn’t.

AA:

The prgram I worked in was a collaboration between 3 social service agencies. We took all the people everyone said was unemployable and deeloped a program that had 3 different approaches.
1) Each person was assigned an employment counsellor who discussed their issues with them, concerns, goals, assessments (if needed)tc. This was done prior to job search to strongly identify goals the individual had and skills/strengths they had/needed to accomplish those goals. The counsellor and the client then met with the rest of the team to discuss this in meetings.

2) Each person had a employment support worker to assist them in job search strategies, researching work environments, employers, developing skills that pertained specifically to their vocation. We also assisted in interview coaching, support, on site employment support and faded support. It was a pretty cool job.

3) Each person was assigned a Work experience developer/employment developer to fine tune their resumes, network with employers and locate employment for clients.

It sounds like alot of staff but it actually wasn’t. The process was very stream lined so each staff could focus to help the client in thier specific goal. Some clients went to work experience for a predetermined length of time (2 - 4 weeks depending) to learn the skills they needed for the job, get the experience they needed and references. It was an excellent concept for support.

If you are researching employers you should have occupation lising on the internet. In Canada they are called “National Occupational Classifications”, NOC codes for short. They break down each Occupation in Canada into its requirements, skills needed, expectations, wage ranges, employment outlook, etc. The US I think has the same system. It may be a start.

Jacqueline and AA:

You are right reading about a job when you have LD doesn’t seem to cut the mustard. When I wanted to get into my field I started off volunteering in my field to get experience, a reference and a general understanding of my chosen profession (expectations, wages, environments I could be working with, skills I would need and skills that I already had that were applicable to my line of work). I volunteered about 2 months for maybe 10 hours a week. I also chose a place with a good reputation in my line of work so the reference and experience would have more meaning (it was actually the childrens treatment facility that I now work at).

The next step was to not set my goals too high. I applied to a social service agency that needed staff and wouldn’t be too picky about experience (not that I took the job any less seriously or the people I worked with). I worked there for about 2 years and moved onto a different agency that paid more and offered me the opportunity to learn new skills. It took me about 8 years to get where I am although I was never starving or hated my other jobs. They simply didn’t give me the opportunity to do what I wanted (reshape and influence social services, big goal). The next step will be starting to try to teach at the local College.

In Canada some companies are Federally legislated to hire people with disablities, minorities, women, etc or they run the risk of losing their right to bid on fereral contracts. There was also an organisation that was the watch dog for these companies to ensure they kept up their end of the bargain. I found them, got a list of the companies and developed a contact within the organisation to ensure they helped us advocate with employers. You want to try to do the same thing and talk with the organisation and ask them how they can help you, direct or advocate for you with employers, etc.

Finding them may be hard. You could try calling the department for industry in the states, they may be able to help.

I hope this was helpful, if you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to ask. I grew up with LD too and know how frustrating things can be.

Brad

Benito,

VR is a waste of time for most folks regardless of their disability. I agree that reform is unlikely as you can’t turn a pig into a work horse but torturing them a bit does empower us. Kinda like the rape victim kicking the rapist in the gonads. The rape analogy is very accurate but the rapist we refer to as VR needs to be castrated.

Brad:

You hit it on the money ! This is exactly what the U.S. should have. If these buisnesses want to bid on Government contracts, they must be legislated by stature to hire some Learning Disabled folks or lose the right to bid on contracts for five years. Alot of LD people especially near the nation’s capital or metropolitan areas work for civil service because private sector or nonprofits will not take a chance on us. If this program was in place, people would try to private sector. However, we need to have an action plan like you do in Canada so LD people do not flunk out too soon. This is what our present DVR does not have regretablly. What are some success suggestions you might advise ? Thanks.

You may already have such a system in place but are unaware of it. I first thought there may be something like that in Canada simply because there was companies getting government contracts and there is usually some type of expectation from the government. It took me about 2 weeks of searching by calling one section of the government then being sent to another and another and another. Eventually I found them. It was never something sent out to any vocational programs that there was such a program in place. I bet that is probably the case in the states as well.

If not, then I would begin to call your local politicians to ask why companies recieving state and federal contracts have no expectations to contribute back to the community. If they are giving you the run around go one step above them and be sure to document the trail of people you talked to and what was specifically talked about to make sure they maintain accountability and can’t give you the run around. Also focus on the Ministry? of Industry to ask them . They were the one’s I found out the information from initially in Canada.

Some of these companies didn’t take the program too seriously though due to having the contact they wanted and that was enough. But most were pretty good, there was also a rating book that was sent to me that was completed every 2 years arting companies on their compliance through an A - E grading system; it was broken into subsections such as how amny women they employed, promoted , etc, people with disabilities , etc.

The real key is to develop good work related skills to the specific occupation you want whether you have to volunteer, do a work experience, etc. My experience has been as well that you really can’t predict who would be a good employer and who wouldn’t. You’ll always come across judgement and precomceptions. Someone I knew once saw me reading Aristotle and said “that’s just for show ,right?” Until I explained the theory of Posterior Analitics to her. People with any disability have to learn to be less complacant and be confident in themselves to make a difference for themselves and others. With the people I’ve talked to here on this site, I don’t think you guys will have any problem.

Take care, hope it was helpful,
Brad

Linda:
You and your husband was lucky: He wasn’t an orphan since age 13 like I was. LD or not, when a person has no family to help or support them, their life’s chances are alot less hopeful. When you are poor, trying your best all alone with no help, nobody giving a damn, there’s a BIG difference. Nobody cares about those of us who have nobody, no support, nothing. Maybe this is difficult for others to understand because they never spent Christmas all alone in a house without heat or a good meal simply because they were unwanted, had no money, and had no family and all they ever got from everyone else in society was a fist in the face instead of a fair shake and an even break.

I didn’t get the nice husband who accepted me and loved me for me, or supported me. The only men I ever got were the jerks who either abused me and/or took advantage of me because I was poor and desperate and also for my disability because I am just another one of society’s “throw-aways” that simply doesn’t count. Thats how folks with no family and no resources rank in the scheme of things, LD or not. I had no one to ever stick up for me or watch my back and look out for my interests in any way, and due to my LD I can’t always do a real good job of that myself. After all, who cares about poor people that got nothing, no family, whether or not their LD? Being LD and a woman certainly did not make life any easier for me, an orphan from Philly. All there is to turn to is agencies like OVR or welfare or SSI, only to get asked the same stupid question ” Don’t you have family to help you?”, like DUH!! If I had family, do you think I’d spend 8 hours sitting here in your office swallowing my pride begging for less-than-adequate help and support from some bureaucrat who could care less? Do you know just how cruel it is to be told by someone that’s never had it rough ” You have to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and keep trying” when you don’t even have the pair of boots, never mind the bootstraps to pull yourself up with, and you’ve got absolutely nothing left to be able to try with?

If you found one of my earlier posts a bit caustic and rage-filled, just remember, I am as sensitive to society and the people in it as they were (and still are) to me and my needs and feelings. I live what I learned. If somebody don’t like it, too bad because they certainly did not care about how I felt, and what I thought did not matter….simply because I had no family, no money, and no fair chances. The way people treat me is how I treat them.

Brad thanks alot ! I will try to find out more info on companies and compliance.

A friend’s workplace is very LD friendly, because one of the previous supervisors had a family member who was ADD/ADHD. It worked out good.

WWW.GOOGLE.COM >type in US SENATE. ther’s a link that shows all the senators in alphabetical order go to there site and and click their email link. SPEAK YOUR PIECE ABOUT THE FAILURES OF VR

Very interesting posts here. To those who remember me… I’m back! Been really busy… but got a new job teaching in a rural school setting. for anyone new who cares to know…. I have several old posts you may find of interest in the Adults with ADHD and Adults with LD.

Now to respond to the posts in this thread….
There is so much “defense” going on here I could’ve sworn that I was at a boxing match. Everyone is an expert… NOT. Many of the posts are well thought out and articulately written… (AA right on the money, straight shootin’ and from the hip, as always) others are written by troubled souls looking for answers, looking for attention or looking for a fight (yes, Ball, good to see you are alive and well). Some “experts” are apparently looking for a podium and an audience.

Not all the messages are written on this board by highly trained and educated experts. Not all the participants of such have average or above average IQs. The board is for the public domain… you have people from all walks of life, mostly looking for ANSWERS and/or ADVICE.

To give flippant responses on this board is creating chaos to those who need more information to unscramble their lives. To give anger filled attacks, engages more anger and scares away the people who really need assistance. Of course most of us are not in the helping professions, but those of us who are LD and or ADHD have a responsibility to respond to our “peeps” in respectful and beneficial manner. Of course we are all going to freely express opinions… but when it gets to the point of attack… DO IT DIRECTLY TO THE ATTACKEE, NOT TO THE GENERAL POPULATION!!!

To those PROFESSIONALS in the helping field… your irresponsible, defensive attitude is out of place here…and quite UNETHICAL. you could learn a lot on this board if you’d keep your ego intact. I have worked in treatment centers where the recovering alcoholic counselors felt they were superior counselors to those that had not had alcohol abuse problems…. that they could understand and help alcoholics better.
It isn’t neccessarily so… And the same applies here. Many non LD or ADHD professionals are able to completely know and understand the people with the above. then again, many keep up with the latest research, know just what to diagnose and recommend for treatment…. but not one ounce of INSIGHT.

Of course all of us LD-ADHD-ers can’t be classified or generalized, and should not be stereotyped. But, many of US think on the other sides of issues…we see life, feel life, experience life in a way that non-ers could only dream of… (Life’s a Trip…So Pack Lightly). Thank God for all of us.

ANYONE WITH BONES TO PICK WITH ME… FEEL FREE. PLEASE…

Georgia

Oh ! Heil Hitler to you…