Transition is Key to Job Success for Microfilmer – Autism Job Story
Nancy Henn, a woman in her late thirties with significant autism, has worked 40 hours a week at union scale and full benefits in the same job for over 13 years. According to an article written by her mother, Marilyn Henn, for Autism Spectrum Quarterly in 2005, Nancy’s duties include microfilming, catching metered mail, doing inter- and intra-departmental mail delivery, and making notepads. Her mother states that one of the keys to Nancy’s employment success was a lengthy and well-planned transition process from school to work, while she was a student.
Five years before Nancy Henn graduated from high school, her parents initiated a transition plan for her which included four years of work in the community in order to help her develop the skills she needed for a real job in the real world. Marilyn Henn writes that “one of the biggest mistakes made in preparing individuals with disabilities for the workaday world is that of starting too late. The time to prepare the student for the transition from school to employment in the community is while the student is still in school, not after he or she graduates.” In the article, she points out that while people with disabilities spend 17-22 years in school, they spend 40 plus years as adults.
Essentially nonverbal except for a few words, gestures, and some sign language, Nancy tests in the lower 10% of all those with autism. She sometimes has tantrums, which have involved kicking, screaming, biting, pica, and self-injurious behavior including jumping out of a second-story window.
Nevertheless, she works 40 hours a week, thanks to the support of a full-time behavior support specialist/job coach that she pays for from her work earnings, which allows her the dignity of paying for what she needs to be successful and “removes the argument that long-term on-going supports are not affordable.”
When Nancy was still a high school student, Kent State University’s Cooperative Transition Services Program placed her in the Kent State library, tasked with picking up books left on tables and in cubicles. She started out working only one hour per day, one to two days a week, but soon she was working five days a week.
A year before Nancy graduated from high school, her parents started hunting for a paid job in the community. Mrs. Henn writes, “We felt this was a must, because statistics show that if a person with a disability seeking work upon graduation does not have that job before he or she graduates, that person only has a 20% chance of becoming employed after graduation when the supports are no longer mandatory.”
Nancy’s parents went through the Rehabilitation Services Commission/Bureau of Vocational Rehabilitation, but subcontracted the actual job find work to Rachel, a Kent State graduate student in the Center for Innovation in Transition and Employment. who contacted them weekly. After approximately nine months, Nancy began work as a mail clerk/messenger while still in school.
Not only is Nancy employed, she lives in her own home with three other young ladies with different disabilities in a “Family Consortium” model of supervised group living.
In 1999, Nancy was the national “Personal Achievement” award winner for The Association for Persons in Supported Employment (A.P.S.E.), and in 2003 she won the national “Outstanding Individual with Autism” award from the Autism Society of America (ASA). In addition to these awards, she “is considered the most productive microfilmer in her department, since she microfilms at rates that are two and one half times faster than her nearest non-disabled co-worker.”
Marilyn and Joe Henn currently share their experience with their daughter at presentations around the country. Their upcoming speaking schedule is:
