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“Many adults with autism have a hard time finding a job, but more companies are discovering the unique skills and potential people with autism offer.” - Anderson Cooper reports. Click the play button to be directed to the video!

Debbie Telsey, Founder of I Can Living and Learning Center discusses job training & opportunities for adults with disabilities on Easy 93.1. Click the play button to listen!

The Palm Beach Post

Debbie Telsey is a former special education teacher and executive recruiter who blended both careers into a business. Two years ago, Telsey co-founded I Can Living and Learning Center, a Boca Raton-based company that helps find jobs for adults with disabilities."It's the perfect job for me," Telsey said. "I love being a recruiter of people with special needs."Telsey said various social service agencies refer clients to her and her team of nine job coaches. The clients are all ages and have disabilities ranging from physical to intellectual. But with one-on-one coaching, including pre-employment classes, Telsey said I Can Living is able to place about 80 percent of the people who seek her help finding jobs. Telsey said she's constantly seeking out employers who are willing to hire. Many are surprisingly pleased with the candidates she finds because "they are the best employees they've ever had," she said. "They are so happy at being given a chance, they usually work very hard." As an example, she cites a Haitian woman whom Telsey helped find a job. "She was very poor and scared, plus she was a deaf-mute," Telsey said. "But I got her a job making $10 an hour full time. She sews tablecloths. They love her. She works so hard." While Telsey said she'll help anyone who wants to work, there is one disability she will not abide: "If you have a bad attitude, that's a disability I can't help," she said.

Sun-Sentinel Center helps people with disabilities find jobs during COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped the job market for many South Floridians. For individuals with disabilities, this already-complicated terrain has become even more complex. I Can Living and Learning Center, a nonprofit vocational organization for individuals with disabilities in Deerfield Beach, has been helping its clients adjust to the employment process in the age of the pandemic.

The center is a vendor of the Florida Department of Vocational Rehabilitation. Individuals with disabilities seeking employment assistance can get a reference for a vendor such as I Can, which serves South Florida from Miami to Fort Pierce.

Co-founder Debbie Telsey emphasized the importance of the work that her job coaches are doing right now in connecting clients who need work with the industries that are hiring.

“It’s difficult for our individuals to find jobs, period, and now it’s even harder, so they really need the assistance because there are not as many jobs as there were,” she said. “And a lot of them lost their jobs because of COVID-19, and we’re trying to find them new jobs and hoping that some of these businesses will reopen.”

Telsey said the pandemic created a duality of some businesses laying off or furloughing workers while the essential services industry was fervently hiring. Some of I Can’s clients also decided they couldn’t safely work due to health concerns.

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I Can offers optional pre-employment classes teaching resume writing, interviewing and self-advocacy skills. Clients are also paired with employment specialists, who will help them find and keep jobs.

“We have great job coaches that are really caring and wonderful, and in my mind, been heroes during this time,” Telsey said. “They go out in the community. They help them find jobs, they’re kind and patient. We also never try to talk anyone into working if they’re not ready to work during COVID-19.”

Grant Berling, an employment specialist with I Can, said that in-person, community-based interactions were an important part of his job. Now he has to rely on online job searches and phone calls, often leveraging the relationships he has already formed with certain companies.

“My forte prior to all this was face-to-face, going into businesses and meeting with managers and developing relationships,” he said. “But with the pandemic, obviously for my safety and others, it’s probably not the best idea to go door-to-door anymore meeting people.”

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In lieu of physical meetings, employment specialist Sandy Wright said she has been talking over FaceTime with her clients or sometimes meeting up and speaking to each other in their respective cars with the windows rolled down. However, the world’s shift to mostly virtual interactions doesn’t accommodate some of their clients.

Wright had recently begun working with a new client, who was deaf, so they couldn’t easily communicate over the phone. Eventually, they were able to coordinate a time and place for Wright, her client, and the sign language interpreter to meet.

“We ended up meeting in a parking lot at Publix on Commercial Boulevard, east of 95,” Wright said. “We found a shaded spot, and we stood there and conducted the interview, because he desperately was looking for a job, and we couldn’t find a place to meet.”

Wright said that despite the constraints of the pandemic, she has helped several clients find placements in positions such as nurses and dishwashers, among others.

“I have to admit, the first thing when the pandemic started, I panicked inside, because I thought ‘this had been hard enough when we weren’t fighting the pandemic, how on God’s green earth am I going to find a job now that this is happening?’ said Dawn Fifield, who recently went through I Can and was connected with Knoll Publishing. She currently works there as an administrative assistant.

She said she has struggled to overcome the stigma toward people with mental health issues as well as unaccommodating employers. Ultimately, she wants to work toward opening up the conversation around hiring people with mental health issues and disabilities that you can’t necessarily see.

“If I wanted to get an accommodation for my service dog, they wouldn’t even let me in the door for an interview, if I started off with that,” Fifield said. “If you have a mental health issue like myself, that’s not something you could walk in the door and say, ‘Oh by the way I’m diagnosed with ABC, and I take this medication, and can I bring my psychiatric service dog because my dog really helps me mitigate stress.’”

After having been unemployed since early 2018, Fifield said I Can provided her hope. 

“It was like a light at the end of the tunnel,” she said.

Spirit of giving

We had the pleasure of having Debbie Telsey, vocational program director of I Can Living and Learning Center. I Can Living and Learning Center’s Employment Program provides an opportunity for individuals with disabilities to secure suitable employment. They have employment specialists who help participants learn how to do the following: identify an employment goal, properly complete an employment application, prepare a resume, prepare for an interview, utilize appropriate job search methods and, most importantly, help maintain employment. They provide follow-up services and also post employment services to those with significant disabilities. They can be reached by phone at (561) 288-6538, or on the I Can Living and Learning