Individuals with cognitive impairment are faced many difficulties during their time in school. However, these challenges don’t end when they exit the school system. The number of cognitively impaired individuals entering adult hood and the work force continues to rise. Unfortunately, the development of post-secondary education and employment opportunities has not kept pace with this demand, leaving many of these individuals’ unemployed and disengaged with their community. Furthermore, there is a great need for what is termed competitive-integrated employment for the cognitively impaired. This is employment that provides at least minimum wage earnings and levels of benefits comparable to those of non-disabled workers. It is also in an integrated setting in which the person with disabilities has the opportunity to interact with their non-disabled colleagues in the same manner and at the same frequency as their non-disabled colleagues.
Blue Star Recyclers addresses this challenging dilemma with a model it calls the 100 percent solution. Blue Star Recyclers is an award-winning 501c3 non-profit social enterprise with locations in Colorado Springs and Denver, CO. It was founded in 2009, with a core mission to ethically recycle electronics and other materials to create jobs for people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and other disabilities. This Mission helps solve two totally unrelated problems. The first is wasted talent within the community. It is hard to fathom that over 80 percent of adults with ASD and other disabilities are unemployed when a portion of this workforce is custom made for repetitive, systematic, procedural, and tactile tasks. The second is wasted resources. Less than 20 percent of electronics are ethically recycled in the U.S. This is unfortunate since up to 98 percent of the materials in electronics can be recycled for the manufacture of new products. Additionally, Blue Star provides peace of mind for security conscious recyclers. For a nominal cost Blue Star will shred and destroy hard drives basically turning them into mulch, rendering it and the data contained unusable.
Blue Star’s 100 percent solution to date has accomplished the following impressive results:
Over 25 local jobs for people with disabilities in 4 Colorado communities, over $4 million in new local revenues and $1 million in taxpayer savings, over 10 million pounds of electronics ethically recycled. In addition to these significant economic, environmental, and social deliverables, their workers with autism and other disabilities have posted the following occupational metrics since 2010; no employee turnover, no employee absenteeism, no lost time due to accidents in an industry where that’s very difficult to accomplish, 97% “on the clock” work task engagement. According to Laurie Sperry, PhD, BCBA-D Yale University, “These results demonstrate that the unemployment rate of people with ASD and other related disabilities is tied to the lack of opportunity, not the lack of ability.”(Sperry 2016).
The idea behind Blue Star has its origins in 2008 when CEO Bill Morris discovered a small group of adults with ASD dismantling electronics as unpaid volunteers in a day habilitation program. Bill was so impressed with the level of inherent skill and proficiency displayed that it convinced him that their aptitude ethically warranted compensation. He help create an employment enclave through a partnership with an electronics recycler in Denver who offered to pay five cents per pound to disassemble computers into their base materials. The first four employees started work in October 2008, and almost immediately another discovery was made. According to Morris, “in their new workplace setting (away from the day habilitation program) two employees with seizure disorders stopped having seizures, and one nonverbal employee became verbal. It was evident their entire overall state of well-being improved by having a purpose to their day and meaningful work where they could apply their talents.” (Sperry, 2016) Capitalizing on these propensities also precludes the need for job coaches. In fact, Blue Star is not a supported employment setting. The employees, who represent the full range of the autism spectrum, all work independently in a variety of positions alongside their colleagues without disabilities making this a truly integrated work setting.
Blue Star continues to grow through new partnerships and create even more future job opportunities for cognitively impaired individuals. In May 2015 Blue Star Recyclers and PC’s for People http://www.pcsforpeople.com signed a partnership agreement to help bridge the digital divide for low-income residents in Colorado. PC’s for People is St. Paul, Minnesota based non-profit organization which has placed over 40,000 affordable computers in the hands of low income residents in Minnesota since 2007. This partnership will create new jobs and new scopes of work for Blue Star employees. It will provide low income residents with affordable computers and internet access and will shift Blue Star’s focus from end of life recycling to reuse and specific IT assets. Thanks to this initiative hundreds of students in Colorado have already received refurbished computers at home to help them do homework and allow their families to connect to school information. This is just one of many partnerships and projects developed by Blue Star to increase employment opportunities of cognitively impaired individuals while at the same time provide the valuable services of ethically recycling electronics.
The Denver facility offers meaningful employment due to unique partnership with Fort Collins based Otterbox. Otterbox has components and cases with manufacturing defects that need recycled. They signed a contract to bring in their defective cell phone cases for recycling. This allows Blue Star to offer paid internships to former students of Jefferson County Public Schools. This allows for additional employment opportunities for individuals with lower functioning cognitive disabilities. As of 2015 some Jefferson County Public schools are recycling their electronics with cognitively impaired students providing training for these individuals to be pipelined into Blue Star after graduation. “However, the goal is that when they move off the cell phone cases, they can mover to computer disassembly”, according to Morris in a March 17 2015 interview with Fox 31 Denver news. (Erdahl, March 17, 2015)
One just has to visit one the Blue Star Recycle center locations in either Colorado Springs or Denver to see the cheerful demeanor of its employees, beaming with pride at the important work they accomplish. In fact, Blue Star employees take so much pride in the contributions their skills provide their communities that routinely hundreds of staff hours are donated. Some employees such as recycling Tech Ian Sabar, have even used their skills learned at Blue Star Recyclers to volunteer with Santa’s Little Hackers, a non-profit group that adapts toys for children with disabilities. At Blue Star every employee is accountable to achieve a daily production goal that each of them take seriously and achieve with vigor. Many have set numerous record goal achievement levels and continuously strive to improve upon them. There is a shared since of pride in breaking down electronics that would otherwise go into a land fill. Blue Star capitalizes on the special aptitudes and interest of their employees. Allowing them to become a motivated and highly skilled workforce.
Blue Star is very transparent on their operation and provides an exhaustive amount information on their organization and contact information at http://bluestarrecyclers.org/index.htm. Please reference the bellow contact information and hours of business to utilize one of Blue Star’s recycling centers:
Colorado Springs, Colorado
100 Talamine Court
Colorado Springs, CO 80907
719-597-6119
Monday thru Friday 9 A.M. to 5 P.M.
Saturday 9 A.M. to 1 P.M.
Denver, Colorado
953 Decatur Street, Suite C
Denver, CO 80204
303-534-1667
Tuesday thru Thursday 9 A.M. to 5 P.M>
Saturday 9 A.M. to 1 P.M.
Works Cited
Laurie Sperry (2016). Employment Opportunities for People with Disabilities. Autism Spectrum News Vol. 8 No. 4 Spring 2016.
Kent Erdahl (March 17, 2015). Workers with Autism Find Jobs at Denver Electronics Recycling Company, Fox 31 News Denver; http://kdvr.com/2015/03/17/workers-with-autism-find-jobs-at-denver-electronics-recycling-company/
No comments:
Post a Comment