‘People with disabilities can do a wide range of jobs’

An “open mind” is needed to overcome stereotypes of people with disabilities as they can perform a wide range of jobs “as well as everyone else,” according to David T. Hutt.

Hutt, senior staff attorney at the National Disability Rights Network or NDRN, facilitated the CNMI Vocational Rehabilitation Training for the staff of the Northern Marianas Protection & Advocacy Systems, Inc. and the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation.

The training, held at the Pacific Islands Club Charley’s Cabaret on March 28 and 29, focused on the vocational rehabilitation system and process consistent with the federal law and policies. The two-day training also covered other issues relating to vocational rehabilitation.

Hutt pointed out that employers are obligated not to discriminate against people with disabilities under the American Disabilities Act.

Through the vocational rehabilitation program, people with disabilities get help to become employed, economically self-sufficient, independent, and integrated into the society.

“The employers, at the end of the vocational rehabilitation process, will really have to keep open to hiring and working with people with disabilities on the job,” said Hutt.

While there is heightened awareness in dealing with people with disabilities, Hutt said there still remain stereotypes around those with intellectual or mental health disabilities.

According to Hutt, there are those who believe that people with intellectual or mental health disabilities cannot work as they may cause problems at the workplace. “Those are the ones that I think that we still have to overcome,” he said.

Hutt noted that understanding the specific type of mental illness that an individual has would certainly help. In the part of the vocational rehabilitation agency, knowing the “symptomatic behavioral issues” and having the counselor know how to work with that specific disability would be “the most important thing” that the agency could do to help the individual.

To overcome stereotypes against people with disabilities, Hutt said getting those people with disabilities who have become successful out in the open and having public outreach programs would educate employers not to rely on “uninformed information.”

“I think there has to be that ongoing education so that these uninformed stereotypes don’t perpetuate themselves in the workforce,” Hutt told Saipan Tribune.

Hutt said that besides conducting trainings in the CNMI, the NDRN also offers technical assistance through emails, phone calls, website access, and conferences in the mainland to the staff of NMPASI and OVR. For more information about NDRN, visit www.ndrn.org.