About 50 business owners and professionals from around the region gathered Tuesday at Providence Bank in Jefferson City for the first AccessAbility Business Summit.
The goal of the event was to help companies build inclusive workforces where disabled employees feel comfortable, debunk myths surrounding disabled people and inform people about how to comfortably approach disabled people.
Many of the speakers and attendees worked for or received training from Missouri Vocational Rehabilitation, a state program that provides employment, training and training services for people with disabilities.
"Individuals with disabilities can work," said Elizabeth Perkins, director of community rehabilitation programs for Vocational Rehabilitation. "They can be some of your greatest employees and they can do some amazing things, but it takes all of us to work toward that goal and be supportive."
Susan Roemer, director of professional services at the MORE Group, which places employees with disabilities in jobs in Columbia and Jefferson City, said MORE often places Central Missouri employees with Hy-Vee and the state of Missouri.
Utility companies often look to MORE for place employees in call center positions that pay $11-$13 per hour, Roemer said. Lincoln University also employs people referred by MORE in most departments.
"I think the disabilities population is kind of an untapped workforce," Roemer said.
One in five adults in the United States - 37 million-57 million people - lives with a disability, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. One in six children has a developmental disability, according to the CDC.
Vocational Rehabilitation works with people of all types of disabilities said Lesa Barber, a former assistant supervisor and business specialist at Vocational Rehabilitation. At the event, Barber sought to debunk myths about disabled people.
She said most people believe those with disabilities have higher rates of absenteeism than their peers. She noted, however, studies proved disabled workers have better attendance records, reduced rates of work-related injuries and equal rates of production.
She said employees with disabilities tend to require the same amount of training as their counterparts, with some exceptions for people with intellectual or learning disabilities.
During her presentation, Barber advised attendees to avoid labeling people by using first-person language instead of third-person language.
"For example, you would say 'she has autism,' instead of 'she's autistic,'" Barber said. "You're going to put the person in front of the diagnosis."
Many disabilities may be physical and easily seen. Others can be mental and hidden.
"Maybe we'll think of someone that uses a wheelchair due to a disability or guide dog because of blindness, but in reality, the majority of disabilities are invisible," Barber said.
Keynote speaker Andrew John Mikolay knows this all too well. He now works as an integrated health specialist for Pathways Behavioral Education in Eldon, but his road there took decades battling addiction.
Growing up in St. Louis, he had several untreated learning disabilities as a child. In elementary school, he struggled to read and did well only in math. His teachers didn't know how to understand how to treat his condition, he said, because his disability was not visible. So he went through special education classes, struggling to be "just like everyone else."
He later experienced with alcoholism, also abusing cocaine and heroin. During his darkest days, he received six DWI citations in four states.
At age 43, Mikolay decided he wanted to "grow up" and earn a bachelor's degree. So he went to Columbia College to take a placement test. Unable to read or write, he couldn't figure out how to turn on the computer to take the test.
"I could read a Budweiser sign, but I couldn't read a paragraph," Mikolay said.
Mikolay has been sober for 13 years. He credited Vocational Rehabilitation with helping save his life and helping him move past the learning disabilities that long stopped him from succeeding in the working world. In 2014, at age 51 and after five years at Columbia College, Mikolay earned his degree in human services. Two years later, he earned a masters in education, guidance and counseling from Lincoln University.
"People with mental illness, as long as they are consistently being treated with medicine and perhaps therapy, can do all types of things," Mikolay said.