November 5, 1998

Media Contact: José A. Alvarez (619) 594-2585

 

SDSU Sponsors Conference on Disability in Guam

 

Persons with disabilities and human service providers need to work more closely in order to respond to the needs of future employers. This is one of the conclusions that researchers from San Diego State University and other universities from the Pacific arrived at during the first annual conference on disability held in Guam last week.

At the "Pacific Perspectives on Employment of Persons with Disabilities in the 21st Century" Conference, participants discussed solutions for increasing the employment opportunities of people with disabilities in the Asia Pacific Region. Representatives from Guam, the Federated States of Micronesia, American Somoa, the Republic of Palau, Fiji, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands and other countries in the Pacific and Pacific Rim attended the conference.

The focus was to get employers, human service providers, policy makers and people with disabilities to exchange information, expand and develop partnerships and formulate strategies to reduce the unemployment rate of disabled persons in the Pacific.

"One of the problems is the attitude on the part of employers; the presumption that they (people with disabilities) can’t be productive employees," stated Dr. Fred McFarlane, chair of the Department of Administration, Rehabilitation and Postsecondary Education at SDSU and director of the Interwork Institute and the Rehabilitation Research and Training Center of the Pacific, entities which sponsored the conference.

"There is a stereotype among employers that if you have a disability, you’re disability prone," added McFarlane, indicating that 70% of adults with disabilities in the Pacific are unemployed.

It is for that reason, he concluded, that much more time needs to be spent educating employers and preparing people with disabilities to enter the workforce with the necessary skills to be effective employees.

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