The History of employment for Canadians who are Blind, Deafblind, and Partially Sighted: Part 4 – Do Employment programs Really Work?

In this last in a four-part series on employment, the Triple Vision team speaks to Jen Ferris and Wayne Henshall in order to answer the question: “Do employment programs for blind Canadians really work?” Jen Ferras is a "Free Agent" employed by the Government of Canada working on modernization initiatives; she has been working towards her own employment program for Canadians who are blind called “Talent Launch Consulting” on the side. The idea is to seek out gig work from established companies and then provide that work to qualified individuals looking to start their careers, or change their employment situation for the better. “What makes it unique is that it's well-established. It's legitimate companies requiring work to be done on their projects, and it's meaningful work. It’s not just tokenism.” Meanwhile, after 20 years in the corporate world, Wayne Henshall is now head of the Come to Work Program at CNIB. The program supports blind and visually impaired individuals moving along the continuum of vision loss through to the pursuit of work, careers and venture start-ups. The national program has grown from 30 participants in its first year, to now taking in 1,100. “The hard part is, how do you make the overall numbers change? We have such a high unemployment rate, it's three times the rate of the rest of Canada, and so I would say, are we making meaningful change? Two hundred and eighty of those 1,100 individuals have gotten jobs who had not been working for six months-plus, and in some cases had never worked, ever in their activities. So, that is a start. … Even if I got all 1,100 of those, that would only change the overall employment rate by less than .01%.”