The Derby City Chapter of the National Spinal Cord Injury Association Network- Serving Kentuckiana.
Message From the President
Dear Members & Friends-
As of this writing, no speaker has been scheduled. If one is not available, a video will be shown. Pizza and soft drinks will be provided. Please note the meeting location change in the calendar. We are not meeting in the 10th floor dining room.
April's meeting will be held at 6:30 at Frazier Rehab, 10th floor dining room.
- David Allgood
The following is from the internet....editor COMPUTERS OPEN WORKFORCE TO DISABLED By David S. Joachim
For 24 years, Pamela Post, a victim of a panic disorder called agoraphobia, has been afraid to leave her house. She managed to find work for a time, at a company partly owned by a man who also had a panic disorder. He gave her a private office in a house, to make her feel at home and to shield her from the office bustle that could bring on the attacks. But 3 1/2 years into the job, even those accommodations were no longer enough. Her husband left her, and her 19-year-old daughter, who drove her to work, married and moved out. "All of a sudden the panic attacks got out of control," Ms. Post said. "I don't drive, so I didn't know what I would do." After a year with no job, she came across Willow, an outsourcing company that was starting a program to train at-home workers to take calls for companies like Teleflora and Palm. Today, she works from home in Deltona, Fla., sets her own hours, and supports herself. And the panic attacks have subsided. "It's been a godsend," she said. Such arrangements are bringing jobs to thousands of people with disabilities, including those with spinal cord injuries and vision loss. Fast computers and broadband connections have become so inexpensive and reliable that location is now not an issue for certain jobs, like customer service.
At the same time, an abundance of technology is available to help disabled people operate computers, like software that lets a blind person use a keyboard instead of a mouse to navigate a program, and voice synthesizers that turn text into speech. There are also alternatives to the mouse for people with limited use of their arms.
Stephen Singley, 41, who is quadriplegic as a result of a car accident 20 years ago, has a special setup that helps him take calls for Office Depot from his home in Centerville, Ut. His right arm, which has limited movement, is strapped to the armrest of his wheelchair, allowing his hand to pivot on a trackball and his pinky knuckle to tap a clicker. A splint with a rubber tip is hooked to his palm so he can type on a keyboard sitting on his lap.
"You would think that typing one key at a time would be slow, but I can type 25 wpm accurately," Mr. Singley said. He puts in 20-24 hours a week, requiring extended breaks so his girlfriend can give him his medication and prepare him for his meals.
No one has statistics on just how many disabled people work from home as phone agents. But the market research firm IDC says that about 112,000 home agents—both disabled and not—were working for outsourcing firms like Willow, Alpine Access of Golden, Colo., and J.J. Lodge of Hammonton, N.J., at the end of 2005. That number is expected to climb to 300,000 by 2010. That does not count employees of companies that hire their own home agents. Many new jobs will go to people who are disabled or to people who care for them, several specialists said, because there are more programs to train them.
