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You’re listening to the Disability Law Lowdown Show #30.

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Beth Case: Hello and welcome to the Disability Law Lowdown Podcast. My name is Beth Case and I am editor and producer of this podcast as well as the voice at the beginning of each show giving you the show number.

I’m just here today to let you know that this is Part Two of an episode contributed by Jana Copeland of the Rocky Mountain ADA Center. It was just a little bit too long to put out in one episode, so we started it in Show #29 and this is the second half. If you like, you can go back and listen to Show #29 before listening to the rest of it today, but if you don’t want to do that right now, Show #30 will still make sense on its own.

So, with that, I’ll turn it over to Jana Copeland.

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Jana Copeland: The great work that my colleagues are doing in Region Six. We also have another project coming out of the DBTAC Great Plains ADA Center in Region Seven. This project focuses on exploring receptive work places of successful workers with disabilities and limitations. Again, Washington University in St. Louis, their program in occupational therapy and the Region Seven DBTAC are working together on a study of people with disabilities who are successfully employed. The goal of this project is to identify how individuals with disabilities perform the essential elements of their work tasks.

This study involves surveys, semi-structured interviews, and videotaping of job tasks that may provide information on what task modifications, assistive technologies, personal assistants, built environment features and work site accommodations help individuals with disabilities to be successful employees. The focus of this study centers on how individuals with disabilities identify and overcome barriers to job retention.

In order to become participants in the study, people with impairments and limitations, and that includes mobility, vision and or hearing, who are over the age of eighteen and have worked in their current full- or part-time job for at least two years are eligible to complete a survey that asks about basic personal information, health status, personal assistance use, assistive technology use, forms of transportation used, and specific questions about their work site and workplace.

In order to further capture information regarding the factors that contribute to a successful work career, a subset of participants in the survey will also be asked to complete a videotaped interview and a videotaped session during which they perform their essential job tasks. Survey data, interviews and samples of the videotaped sessions are analyzed and sample video clips will be uploaded to a web-based video library.

If you’re interested in getting involved in this employment survey with Region Seven, please contact Kerry Morgan at the university. And her number is 314-286-1659. Again, that’s Kerry Morgan at 314-286-1659. Or you can also email her at morgank@wusn.wustl.edu.

A much easier way to get information on these and the other projects that our colleagues in Region Seven are doing is to visit their website at www.communitychange.info.

I just want to spend a little bit of time talking to you about one more project that you can get involved with if you are a Disability Law Lowdown listener. This project is coming out of our sister Center in Region Four, the Southeast ADA Center. It’s my pleasure to be able to visit today with Meera Adya, a researcher based out of the Burton Blatt Institute at Syracuse University and affiliated with the DBTAC Southeast.

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Jana Copeland: We also have the opportunity today to talk to Meera Adya, Director of Research at the Burton Blatt Institute at Syracuse University as well as the Director of Research with the DBTAC Southeast ADA Center. Thanks for your time today, Meera.

Meera Adya: No problem.

Jana: Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Meera: Sure. As you mentioned, my name is Meera Adya. I’m the Director of Research here at the Burton Blatt Institute and I’m affiliated faculty with the psychology department at Syracuse University where the Burton Blatt Institute is centered. The Burton Blatt Institute is what we are doing building the premier organization to advance civic, economic and social participation of persons with disabilities in a global society. We have areas of focus across the board. In terms of activities, they focus around research, education and training, policy and technical assistance as well as outreach and fundraising. In terms of subject matter, we have core areas we tend to concentrate in: employment, entrepreneurship, economic empowerment, civil rights and community participation.

Jana: That’s great. We’ve had an opportunity to talk to a couple of other researchers in the DBTAC network across the country about some of the other projects that other researchers are doing across the country. Can you tell us a little bit about the project that Burton Blatt is doing in association with the DBTAC Southeast ADA Center?

Meera: Sure. One of the projects that we’re pretty excited about, and which we’re hoping to recruit individuals to collaborate with us on, involves looking at corporate culture and the employment of people with disabilities.

More specifically, we’re interested in, with this project, understanding what are the policies, the practices around employment at various organizations and how do they hinder or facilitate more specifically the recruiting, hiring, the retention and the promotion of people with disabilities.

We were initially sponsored to do a project around this by the Department of Labor which had recognized that while many efforts were being made to understand these issues, by doing case studies with various companies, the efforts were somewhat disjointed and dissimilar. That was preventing an evidence base from being built up in a way that it could be compared, could be synthesized, and from which best practices lessons could be inferred. They commissioned us not only to create a standardized method, but then to also conduct a series of case studies of organizations so that a preliminary evidence base could begin to be built. This is the work that we’re continuing through the DBTAC, as well.

Jana: Before we talk about how folks can get involved in your project, Meera, can you talk a little bit about the concept of corporate culture and what that means when you’re dealing with the employment of people with disabilities?

Meera: Sure. As an entree into that, perhaps what I’ll do is talk a little bit about our work in this area to date and how it’s moving forward.

The corporate culture, as I mentioned, that we’re looking at, what we’re looking at there are what policies do companies have on paper. For example, when it comes to diversity, what policies do companies have when it comes to existing employees, say around flexibility, the workplace accommodations they make. How do those policies impact employees as well as managers within units who have to make the accommodation?

And, importantly, what we try to do with our methodology is focus not only on these issues at a sort of a macro level when we’re thinking about culture, but really how is it operationalized at an every day level. So it comes down to what action steps individuals can take, what policies organizations can implement, and the focus for us was making sure that this is about a value perspective. What value does this return to an organization when they do this? How do these things impact their bottom line?

Jana: That’s great, Meera. I have to tell you, as a professional working in the DBTACs and talking with both people with disabilities who are either working or job seking as well as employers out in the real world, so to speak, hearing about research like this and a project like this is just so exciting because of the potential practical applications it could have with the people that we, the DBTACs, work with on a daily basis. So, it’s so exciting to hear about projects like this.

For this project, how can folks get involved? How can they participate and get involved with these case studies that you’re doing?

Meera: Well, certainly one way to get involved, they can visit the Burton Blatt Institute’s website. They can visit the DBTAC Southeast ADA Center’s website. I know that where this podcast will be disseminated there will be some information and my email address and phone number will be made available, and really contacting me, I will immediately connect with whoever is interested in this project and get them started.

Jana: Absolutely. Would you mind going ahead and sharing your phone number with us so that in case folks don’t have access to the transcript and they’re listening to the podcast on their portable device that they might be able to make a call if they’re interested in getting in touch with you?

Meera: You bet. So my phone number, to reach me directly would be 315-443-7346 and I’d be happy to disseminate my email address, that’s another good way to reach me, if that’s preferred. And that is madya@syr.edu

Jana: Perfect. Thank you, Meera. And as you mentioned, this information, you’ve actually provided a couple of very concise and informational pieces for folks to take a look at if they’re interested in your corporate culture study and that information will also be available in the transcripts of today’s podcast episode.

Are there any other comments or final thoughts you have before we wrap up today?

Meera: Just to say that I would be interested in hearing from anybody who would like to learn more about this work but aren’t sure it’s right for them to participate at this time. As I mentioned, we have already conducted several studies and we have an understanding of what has been shown in these companies to work. I’d love to talk more about this or similar projects with them. Find out what it is that they’re interested in being able to do or learn more about and see how I can be useful in that domain, as well.

Jana: And just before we wrap up, Meera, as a clarifying questions, you are looking for representatives from organizations, correct.

Meera: Yes, anybody from a company who would like to learn more about their company practices, its impact on their bottom line and what they can do to impact the employment of people with disabilities in their organization, I’d love to hear from them. But I will say that the DBTAC and the Burton Blatt Institute have many many projects underway and organizations can benefit from other projects. I would also love to hear from employees, individuals who are looking for work but may not be employed right now. We have many projects that may touch them in a variety of ways, as well.

Jana: Perfect. Well, thank you very much for your time today, Meera. As I said, as a practitioner out here, I am very excited to start to see the results rolling off from the different studies that you’ve been doing. I do appreciate the time that you’ve spent with me today.

Meera: You bet. Anytime, Jana.

Jana: Thanks, Meera.

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Jana: Thank you for joining us today and giving me the opportunity to tell you a little bit about the DBTAC research program and opportunities for you to get involved and participate and have your voices heard in some of the variety of projects that we’re working on across the country. If you have any other questions about the Americans with Disabilities Act or any of these exciting research projects, please give your regional DBTAC a call at 800-949-4232 or visit us online at www.adata.org.

Also, if you’d like any of the contact information or any other information about the different projects that are available that were highlighted in this episode, please visit the Disability Law Lowdown Podcast website at dll.adapodcast.com.

Thanks and have a great day.

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The Disability Law Lowdown is brought to you by the Disability Business Technical Assistance Centers which are a network of ADA centers that provide training, technical assistance and materials on the ADA and other disability related laws. Funding for the centers is provided by a grant from NIDRR, the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research. You can subscribe to the Disability Law Lowdown at our website at disabilitylawlowdown.com or on iTunes.



The Southwest and Rocky Mountain ADA Centers are part of a program of Independent Living Research Utilization at TIRR - Memorial Hermann in Houston, Texas, and is funded by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research. If you have questions about disability law or would like to request materials or training, please call 1-800-949-4232. This podcast is protected by the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No-Derivative-Works 2.5 License. For more information and transcripts, visit www.ada-podcast.com.