Tom Collen enjoys motors, tools and things mechanical. Tearing apart lawnmowers is a snap. Poking and tinkering with belts and bolts comes easily. As maintenance engineer at Shamrock Bolt and Screw in Itasca, Collen says he enjoys rolling up his sleeves to tackle various projects.
But Collen candidly admits that in spite of what he can do, there is much in life he finds difficult. Born 50 years ago with learning disabilities, Collen has struggled his entire life to keep up in school, write personal checks, pay bills and live independently.
Through what he describes as constant self-determination, Collen now lives in a shared housing arrangement in Elk Grove Village, where he has his own room and holds down a full-time job.
Because of his can-do spirit and willingness to share his experiences as a person with disabilities, Collen has been selected to join the Illinois Winners, the state’s first speakers bureau in support of inclusion in the workplace, schools and community for people with disabilities. More and more schools are including students with disabilities in regular classrooms.
The speakers bureau is part of a public awareness campaign called Illinois WINS (Watch Inclusion Nurture Success), sponsored by the Illinois Planning Council on Developmental Disabilities. Approximately 100 Illinois residents-those with disabilities and their family members, employers and advocates-have been asked to speak out against prejudices commonly held against people with disabilities.
Since last fall, members of Illinois Winners have been sharing their personal experiences with chambers of commerce; civic, service and community groups; and trade and professional associations.
Speakers say they hope their efforts will result in a better understanding by businesses that hiring a person with a disability can be a benefit instead of a burden.
“Employers have to know that people with disabilities can do a job if given a chance,” Collen said. “People with disabilities are willing to work and willing to do the job. There are no such words as, `I can’t do it.’ Forget it. There’s no such word in the dictionary as `can’t.’ I need to show people what I can do.”
As Collen sat in the employee lounge at Shamrock Bolt and Screw, his co-workers filed in for morning coffee. “Be sure to write that we need 10 more like Tom,” one of them said.
One back slap, one handshake and several nods and smiles later, Collen turned and shook his head. “These people have been great to me,” he said.
Yet Collen remembers past jobs where co-workers blatantly belittled his abilities. “I’ve stood behind people in the lunch line and heard them say, `He’s handicapped; anyone can do his job,’ ” Collen said.
Illinois Winners say the goal of the speakers bureau is to get the word out that individuals with disabilities are a largely untapped work force.
“People with disabilities are great workers, and they can contribute much in the workplace,” said Rene Christiensen Leininger, director of the Illinois Planning Council on Developmental Disabilities. “As a community, we have not gotten to know people with disabilities.”
Leininger said that during a 1992 speech, then-U.S. Atty. Gen. Richard Thornberg released unemployment figures for people with disabilities: 58 percent of adult men and 80 percent of adult women had no jobs.
“In 1990, the Illinois Department of Rehabilitation Services did a report to Congress,” Leininger said. “Individuals with disabilities were asked if they would like a job and if they had a job. For the people who said yes, they would like a job, only 47 percent had a job. This speaks a lot for the high unemployment rate (among those with disabilities).”
Eldon Appling of Downers Grove spoke on behalf of Illinois Winners earlier this year at a Rotary Club meeting in Darien, and he found that businesses want answers to some basic questions about people with disabilities.
“I was pleasantly surprised that my suggestion to hire people with disabilities drew no negative responses,” Appling said. “In fact, several of the members told me they had been thinking about this. But the big concern for most businesses was not their risk but jeopardizing the person with disabilities. They were afraid the person would feel left out or even ostracized. And some told me they simply don’t know how to go about hiring a person with disabilities.”
Appling, who runs a business from his home, once owned a factory in Chicago. He said he has hired individuals with disabilities on several occasions and each time was pleased with what these employees brought to his business.
Appling’s son J.D., 26, is retarded, and Appling has spent his life in constant quest of what would be best for J.D.’s future.
The biggest struggle, Appling said, was watching his son sit year after year in isolated classes designed only for children with disabilities. When he was a teenager, J.D. got a temporary job working in the laundry room of a hotel in Oakbrook Terrace, pressing napkins and tablecloths.
“When he is put into a totally integrated setting, he performs on a much higher level than in a segregated setting,” Appling said. “That’s the trouble. The intellectual solution is to isolate him. But with proper training by people who understand him, I have seen my son do things I never thought he could.”
Janice Cernak, assistant school superintendent for District 13 in Bloomingdale, said more and more schools will be practicing inclusion of students with disabilities in the classroom.
“But the cost factor will be the real problem,” Cernak said. “I have seen schools where inclusion failed, but that was because people didn’t do a good job of developing the program and raising staff awareness. If there is a problem with inclusion in the classroom, people went too quickly, before the teachers had proper support.”
At DuJardin Elementary School in Bloomingdale, approximately five students with disabilities were included last year in regular classrooms.
“It’s been marvelous here,” said Cheryl Kmiecik, principal at DuJardin. “The staff, teachers and students have been very favorable to the idea, but we are providing the support teachers need. We have an inclusion facilitator plus one-on-one aides for each student who needs one. We try to tailor this program to meet the needs of the students. We want to make sure inclusion is appropriate.”
Karin Christopher, DuJardin’s inclusion facilitator, said District 13’s committment to inclusion for students with disabilities is beyond anything she has seen in other schools.
“Yes, other districts may have inclusion, but without the support of the administrators or the teachers, it’s difficult,” Christopher said.
The difficulty comes when teachers are told they will have multiple-needs students coming into their classrooms, but not enough guidance is given for curriculum or no aide is present to help with the student’s special needs.
Melody Vroman has taught 5th grade at DuJardin for 13 years. Even with an inclusion facilitator and a one-on-one aide in the classroom, Vroman remembers how fearful she felt the first time her class included a student with Down’s syndrome.
“If the students started acting a little silly because they didn’t know how to act, I would let them,” Vroman said. “I didn’t want to scare them. It took a little time to get used to it, but I learned that you shouldn’t treat them any differently from other students.”
