Paralyzed Veterans Celebrates National Disability Employment Awareness Month

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Oct 05, 2010, 11:01 ET

Organization's Unique Program Focuses on Helping America's Veterans with Disabilities Secure Good Jobs and Establish Meaningful Careers

WASHINGTON, Oct. 5 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- This month marks National Disability Employment Awareness month, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor's Office of Disability Employment Policy. With the national unemployment rate for veterans with severe disabilities at 85 percent, Paralyzed Veterans of America's (Paralyzed Veterans) unique vocational rehabilitation program focuses on helping our nation's veterans with disabilities, and their families, find goods jobs and careers in a tough economy.

"America's veterans with disabilities—and all people with disabilities—deserve a shot at what is at the heart of the American dream: a good job with a good company," said Paralyzed Veterans national president Bill Lawson. "Hiring more veterans with disabilities is a win-win for our country. Those who have served secure good careers; employers get great employees; and, in turn, our economy becomes stronger."

The program, launched in 2007, helps paralyzed veterans and their families develop the skills they need to compete in the job market—while matching them with businesses with vacancies. It is also an innovative public-private partnership with businesses, the federal government and philanthropy.

Paralyzed Veterans has five vocational rehabilitation offices throughout the country and will open its sixth location next month in Augusta, GA. The offices are located in VA spinal cord injury (SCI) centers, maximizing vocational rehabilitation exposure to SCI veterans and service providers.

The national program has helped hundreds of veterans with disabilities and has developed working relationships with more than 300 employers including Best Buy. Sixty-three program clients are veterans of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Of those helped, 120 have already obtained new careers with numerous employers in both the public, private and nonprofit sectors. In fact, three of our program graduates are earning more than $100,000 annually.

The program receives clients in a number of ways, from seeking out newly injured patients to word of mouth. But the most important thing is that the program proactively reaches out to the veterans, often meeting them as early in the rehabilitation process as possible, engaging patients and outpatients alike and publicizing the program at events and in the media. Plus, the program is recognized as an approved "employer network" by the Social Security Administration.

Our counselors network with chambers of commerce, community organizations and by visiting job fairs and veterans employment coordinators. They attend meetings and reach out to local and national employers to develop a network of business leaders who want to hire America's veterans.

Sixty-four years ago Paralyzed Veterans of America was founded by a band of spinal cord injured service members who returned home from World War II to a grateful nation—but also to a world with few solutions to the challenges they faced. These veterans from the "Greatest Generation" made a decision not just to live, but to live with dignity as contributors to society. They created an organization dedicated to veterans service, medical research and civil rights for people with disabilities. And for more than six decades, Paralyzed Veterans of America and its 34 chapters have been working to create an America where all veterans and people with disabilities, and their families, have everything they need to thrive. (www.pva.org).

SOURCE Paralyzed Veterans of America