For 2005: New Tool Offers Expanded Opportunity to Share Insight

Summary:
eSight's new "Swimming in the Mainstream: Topics in Workforce Development" focus gives you an opportunity to establish a dialogue with prospective employers and showcase your accomplishments.

New Opportunity to Showcase Yourself

How to Showcase Yourself

2005 "Swimming in the Mainstream" themes

Expected Outcomes

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It's a new year, and eSight Careers Network is offering you a new opportunity to open a dialogue among job seekers, employees, counselors and employers.

A new "Swimming in the Mainstream" blog is now the place on the Internet to share insights about breaking barriers in disability employment and to identify what works best in managing a career from a disability perspective.

New Opportunity to Showcase Yourself

It's your opportunity to help lay the foundation for an ongoing dialogue about disability employment issues between employers and eSight members who are job seekers or current employees and who have a disability.

And, by doing so, you'll gain visibility for your accomplishments, skills and talents among hiring managers of companies which are disability friendly ￂ? without leaving your keyboard.

eSight Careers Network will facilitate these weekly online discussions during 2005 as part of its "Swimming in the Mainstream: Topics in Workforce Development" orientation.

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How to Showcase Yourself

On the first Wednesday of each month (January through December 2005), eSight will publish a true, personal-experience story to stimulate discussions which answer "how" (not just "what") questions and meets the needs of interested individuals who are committed to addressing workforce development topics on a more-than-casual basis -- one issue at a time.

As a registered member of eSight Careers Network, you'll be able to use eSight's new "Swimming in the Mainstream" blog to quickly and easily contribute your insight about each month's discussion topic. The blog is designed to facilitate these discussions and increase networking opportunities for people with disabilities, the career counselors who serve them and employers who are disability friendly.

See how to use eSight's new "Swimming in the Mainstream" blog at http://www.tabinc.org/sim/

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2005 "Swimming in the Mainstream" themes

During 2005, you'll have an opportunity to address these "Swimming in the Mainstream: Topics in Workforce Development" themes:

• Resolving an accessibility issue so you could take full advantage of opportunities for meaningful work
  
  
• Pinpointing turning points which show your co-workers have finally become comfortable with your disability
  
  
• Looking beyond your disability so you can build a career for yourself
  
  
• Sharing special rules for survival you may find helpful to follow at work ￂ? particularly when you have a disability
  
  
• Rising above the low expectations others at work first had for you
  
  
• Handling reverse discrimination in the world of work
  
  
• Expanding the horizons of others when it comes to disability employment issues
  
  
• Gaining adult status in the eyes of your co-workers
  
  
• Addressing an employment disadvantage due to your disability
  
  
• Learning how to benefit from failure
  
  
• Avoiding the usual "safe" areas of employment for people with disabilities
  
  
• Identifying the disability employment issues which are the most difficult to resolve due to the inaccurate perceptions of others
  
  

Each "Swimming in the Mainstream: Topics in Workforce Development" theme will likely go beyond a personal experience and address a specific disability employment issue in a way which enables individuals with disabilities to better equip themselves or others to move into the mainstream workforce more quickly.

The eSight Careers Network e-mail newsletter, eSight NetWork News, will explain each new topic for discussion and provide links to resources and to the blog so you can easily participate.

The newsletter will also highlight personal achievements gleaned from the weekly discussions and share them with the entire eSight membership each week.

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Expected Outcomes

In addition to giving you a online venue for showcasing your thoughts and accomplishments, the expected outcomes of this year's content focus for eSight include the following:

• eSight members will have new insight about how to manage their own careers on a variety of topics.
  
  
• Such "Swimming in the Mainstream" discussions will generate snippets (each identified by contributor) of insight which collectively will become a series of top-10 replies to key disability employment questions. Those summary articles of key insights will be available for download on eSight Careers Network -- particularly during October 2005, Disability Employment Awareness Month.
  
  
• A selection committee will also choose top "Swimming in the Mainstream" discussions for distribution through eSight's Disability Employment Web (DEW). DEW is eSight's means of distributing rich content about disability employment issues to non-profit audiences. (see http://www.esight.org/dew.html for a detailed description of DEW).
  
  
• Employers will be better informed about some of the barriers job seekers with disabilities face, and that may influence how they approach hiring individuals with disabilities in the future.
  
  
• Ongoing dialogues between individuals with disabilities and prospective employers about key disability issues may promote mutual understanding and respect and increase the number of people with disabilities who are working in mainstream workplaces.
  
  

In other words, "Swimming in the Mainstream: Topics in Workforce Development" will help eSight realize this vision:

Through eSight Careers Network, job seekers, employees, counselors and employers network with each other on a one-to-one basis, share their insights about disability employment issues and identify what works best in managing a career from a disability perspective.

That's why we call eSight Careers Network a "bridge connecting employers to talent in the disability community."

Made possible by a grant from the American Express Foundation.


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