Building Inclusive Workplaces: Preparing Students with Disabilities for Meaningful Careers
What does it truly mean to prepare students with disabilities for meaningful work—and why does inclusive employment matter for everyone?
In this episode of Rewriting the Narrative, CEC President Ben Tillotson speaks with Kelie Hess, a national leader in transition services and customized employment, about the power of community-integrated employment and the role schools play in shaping postsecondary outcomes for students with disabilities.
Employment Is More Than a Paycheck
Kelie shared why employment is foundational to quality of life. “Employment is a lot more than just earning a paycheck,” she said. “More than the money, employment brings connection; it provides opportunity for continued growth and development.”
Community-integrated employment, she explained, ensures that individuals with disabilities earn at least minimum wage and work alongside people with and without disabilities. “I feel like community integrated employment is also valuable because that kind of helps us evolve as a society to understand that disability is a normal part of the human experience.”
Rethinking Accommodations
Fear and uncertainty often hold employers back, but Kelie emphasized that accommodations are rarely as complex as they seem.
“Usually, accommodations are not huge adjustments,” she said. “They are very small things that are done to change or adjust the job.”
She also reframed accommodations as something everyone already uses. “Every person who has a job, in small ways, we make changes… so that we can do our best work,” she said. “We just don’t label them as accommodations.”
The Cost of Removing Opportunities
Kelie reflected on her own school experience, sharing how being excluded from physical education seemed harmless at the time, but had deeper implications later.
“Instead of… finding an accommodation or finding a way to adjust a PE experience for me, they just say, Kelie, you don’t have to take PE,” she said. “As an adult, I’m thinking I probably really could have benefited from a modified PE experience, but that was not an option given.”
Ben connected this to a broader pattern in education. “Sometimes we can disable people more than their disability,” he said, when opportunities to try, fail, and choose are removed.
Choice, Failure, and Growth
Kelie stressed that autonomy is a skill that must be intentionally developed. “It’s the skill of growing autonomy for your own life,” she said. “We don’t think of that as a skill to learn and be developed.”
She also emphasized the importance of allowing failure. “We sometimes even need to experience failure,” she said. “We’re not doing people with disabilities any service by removing that from their lives.”
Seeing Strengths and Expanding Possibilities
Identifying what individuals can contribute is a core principle of customized employment, “Every person with a disability has contributions,” Kelie said. “Everyone has them.”
Those contributions can lead to unexpected and meaningful careers, such as working at an exotic pet store, consulting backyard chicken owners, or supporting a local fire station. “We’re not asking for a favor,” she said. “We’re asking for an opportunity… that is going to bring true value to that workplace.”
Rewriting the Narrative of Employment
This episode underscores a powerful truth: inclusive employment begins long before graduation. It starts with experiences, high expectations, meaningful choice, and belief.
As Kelie reflected, “Students feel right away when an educator has a sincere belief in them and has an expectation for them.”