Microenterprising and People with Disabilities: Strategies for Success and Failure - Statistical Data Included

Journal of Rehabilitation, April-June, 2001 by Richard T. Walls, Denetta L. Dowler, Kimberly Cordingly, Louis E. Orslene, John D. Greer

Despite the many vocational rehabilitation professionals who are not integrating self-employment into their vocational planning, clearly there are people with disabilities who may benefit enormously from having this vocational option. There are people with disabilities who have the desires, skills, enthusiasm, creativity, and willingness to make such an endeavor work for them.

Lessons from the Field

From 1992 to mid 1999, the Job Accommodation Network (a project of the President's Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities) received over 250,000 calls from employers, rehabilitation professionals, and people with disabilities who were seeking workplace accommodation information. There were more than 1,000 cases which concerned microenterprise (Job Accommodation Network, 1999).

Of these callers, 408 were seeking specific information concerning self-employment. These individuals were self-employed at the time of the call or were unemployed and seeking to start their own business. For these 408 individuals, an array of disabling conditions was represented such as back injury, multiple sclerosis, learning disability, stroke, cerebral palsy, and mental illness. Percentages for categories of disability of callers who reported their disabling condition are presented in Table 1. These individuals reported a variety of functional limitations that they considered to be barriers to employment. Categories of their functional limitations are presented in Table 2. In these 408 accommodation cases, the most frequent reason for calling the Job Accommo-dation Network was to obtain specific product information to accommodate the worker. As displayed in Table 3, callers also requested general information packets on self-employment, funding a microenterprise, and legal issues related to disability and self-employment. As an example of these calls, a caller who was self-employed as a carpenter and who had a back impairment wanted information concerning adapted tools. He was sent information on panel movers, biocurve hammers, handle adapters, and manipulators. Another caller was seeking to become self-employed as a paralegal and had fibromyalgia and other orthopedic limitations. After discussing specific tasks she would need to perform, she was provided information and suggestions for voice-activated software, alternative mice, filing accommodations, and office ergonomics. Many of these callers had specific ideas for the type of business they would like to start. Computer and technology-related microenterprises were reported as self-employment goals more often than any other class of jobs (15%). In addition, callers had ideas for businesses where they would be self-employed as a leather-harness braider, day-care provider, auto-glass installer, seamstress, plasterer, fish-hatchery operator, court reporter, photo-journalist, peanut-stand vendor, salad-dressing bottler, silk screener, vineyard-tour guide, wood carver, math tutor, and a variety of other occupations.