Disability career counselors?

July 15, 2019 5:08 AM

I have some invisible disabilities that have made finding and keeping a job difficult. Are there career counselors who work with PWDs to help them find suitable work and navigate around challenging office culture?
posted by pxe2000 to Work & Money (4 answers total)

If in the US and your disability is documented medically have you tried your local department of rehabilitation services? Here is Illinois referral process and services, but every state does these things a bit differently with different rules and processes. Based on the information provided there isn't enough to know if this would be a route you qualify for but it's the first referral I would try .

If you do qualify, they have pretty comprehensive programming to help navigate job placement, finding a job and funding for any adaptive equipment you may need.
posted by AlexiaSky at 6:10 AM on July 15, 2019 [3 favorites]

The short answer is, yes, there are.

But the longer answer is: what is available and how easy it is to access really depends on where you are, the nature of your condition, your relationship with local social services (and their eligibility criteria).

One excellent resource is JAN - the Job Accommodation Network. This is a US Government supported website which is extremely comprehensive when it comes to identifying potential accommodations or supports in the workplace. They have an accommodations database that is searchable by condition which lists potential limitations and potential accommodations. This may help you brainstorm what sorts of things you might need to help you.

JAN also offers individual consultations (presumably in the US only). I don't know much about these - for a work project, I've been all over the database, but we're in Canada, so we didn't look into any of the personal services.

In Canada, the CCRW (Canadian Council on Rehabilitation and Work) runs a Job Accommodation Service for individuals; they also have links out to programs for job seekers (organized by province - e.g. Ontario).

full disclosure: I am the research coordinator on a research project studying workplace accommodations for people with invisible, episodic health conditions. If you wish to ask more specific questions, feel free to memail me. I'm not a researcher myself, but I have seen a lot of the websites (and I'm currently involved in our brainstorming about accommodations for different work tasks).
posted by jb at 9:00 AM on July 15, 2019 [6 favorites]

I'm a psychotherapist and career counselor with a CRC credential. Among other things, I help people with disabilities find meaningful work. My graduate education was the usual psychotherapy training plus a huge disability and chronic illness component that gave me an add'l certification in (Vocational) Rehabilitation Counseling. Searching for "career counselor crc" should get you some results in your area.
posted by MonsieurBon at 6:16 PM on July 15, 2019 [2 favorites]

You have solid advice above, for navigating office culture, the Ask a Manager website has inclusive advice for navigating complicated situations from both sides - employee with a disability or colleague of an employee with a potentially qualifying health condition.
posted by childofTethys at 8:31 PM on July 15, 2019