Sunday, November 9, 2008

Disability Mentoring Day (DMD) is a national program, hosted in partnership with the American Association of People with Disabilities on a national level and organized in Florida by the Able Trust. Archer Disability Foundation is a Florida coordinator that started career exploration in 1998, unaware of the national scope. The first ADF outreach program began in 2003. The 2008 event has grown to over 350 mentees in south Florida during October's Disability Mentoring Month. Archer started this program because she knows first hand the pain parents go through when their child has no hope of integrating into the workforce. When her son was 15 years old a school administrator said he was unemployable. Presently, he has been working at Publix for over a decade and working on his GED so he can go to college to study videography. Archer believes students like her son take longer to catch up and may soar once they do.

Only 10% of Florida students with disabilities graduate from high school with some form of employment. According to the Council of State Administrators of Vocational Rehabilitation. ? more than 70 percent of youth with disabilities are still unemployed two years after graduation

This is why ADF has is proud to have to team with Home Depot, Wal-Mart, Publix, Florida Fish & Wild Life & State Attorneys Office for the 2008 Disability Mentoring Day events.

This year Archer Disability Foundation was there to honor Home Depot for the four years of DMD hard work and successful hiring practices of our students and job seekers. Home Depot won the "Palm Beach County Clerk of the Courts 2008 Best Practices Award in Social Responsibility."

For information on how your company can be a Disability Mentoring Day, Mentor

Call Rose Lee: 561-241-7987