Haverhill culinary program cooks up opportunities for adults with intellectual disabilities

Floare de Cires addresses the employment barriers people with disabilities face by training them in culinary and hospitality skills that help them integrate into the workforce and build a sense of independence.

Before DOGE cut the program’s funding, Charting My Path for Future Success was helping students with disabilities learn ways to successfully transition from high school to college or the working world with greater self-sufficiency. Before it was canceled, 1,600 high school juniors enrolled in the program, learning how to set goals, take care of themselves and build their confidence and self-determination skills.

Sightsavers is an international organization that focuses on the prevention of avoidable blindness and the promotion of equality for people with visual impairments and other disabilities in the workforce through its Inclusion Works project. Since its inception in 2020, Sightsavers has helped more than 200 individuals with visual impairments transition into new employment.

Enabled to Enable provides vocational skills training to disabled individuals. So far, the skills training has reached about 129 women and girls, empowering them to find jobs and even start their own businesses despite their disabilities.

The Swedish organization Forum Skill works to address labor market exclusion for immigrants and people with disabilities and immigrants, providing workplace-based Swedish language training programs and hands-on work experience outside of a traditional classroom that helps prepare participants to be successful in the workplace.

TV Bra is a Norwegian news station where all reporters are autistic or have learning disabilities that produces a weekly one-hour news cast tailored to its audience. TV Bra helps ensure news is accessible to everyone, helping people who are historically excluded from journalism stay up-to-date, and has significant viewership, with upwards of 5,000 people tuning in each week.

The Peniel Foundation virtually connects people with disabilities with mentors to help them learn to achieve their goals, level up their career skills to access to better jobs and become financially independent. Since forming, the foundation has seen thousands join the program and go on to have great success in their careers and personal lives.

A program in Lawrence, MA has helped hundreds of families to enter the paid labor force by connecting with them via their children’s’ schools. Using a $700,000 grant, the program connects with parents when they register a child for school. Schools offer programs through resource centers that help them get the training and connections needed to find a job. Oftentimes the parents also get an actual job referral. A key component of the program is English language training as well as skills courses in healthcare, education, manufacturing, and other fields.

As demand for career and technical education grows among high schoolers looking for alternatives to costly college degrees, companies like Stride Inc. have expanded online career training programs across the country, offering virtual career academies, hands-on practice kits, job shadowing, and live instruction in career tracks ranging from business to agriculture.

Nonprofits Manufacturing Renaissance and Youth Crossroads provide vocational training that Chicago's public schools have largely abandoned, particularly in disinvested communities. Manufacturing Renaissance runs free seven-week metalworking cohorts that include stipends, tools, job placement support, and an alumni network, and has trained more than 1,200 young adults since 1982. Youth Crossroads offers multiple workforce tracks, including HVAC certification and paid internships, and 88% of trade program graduates report feeling prepared to enter the workforce.