Diversity Partners Program Spotlight: Providing Enhanced Services to Employers; the 21 and Able Career Transition Program

The Diversity Partners model of employer engagement encourages “enhanced services” to businesses as a means of building sustaining high-quality relationships with employers. This webinar will highlight a unique partnership in Pennsylvania that results in enhanced service to employers and more jobs for people with disabilities: The 21 and Able Career Transition Program.

 Through the Career Transition Program, the United Way partners with employers and job coach agencies to embed a career transition professional (person with expertise in disability services/vocational rehabilitation) within a company to serve as a disability recruiter.  Over 5 years, nearly 400 individuals with disabilities have gained competitive employment with 50 of Pennsylvania’s top employers. The embedded recruiter has the specialized expertise to elevate job candidates with disabilities for open positions and provide retention services to all of the company’s employees with disabilities. This professional can also act as a single point of contact with other outside agencies who support people with disabilities looking for work. This partnership improves the talent pipeline for employers, and creates a climate of inclusion for employees with disabilities.


Presenters
 Jeremy Shapira, Special Projects, Inclusion and Diversity at Giant Eagle, Inc.
Jeremy.shapira@gianteagle.com
Building on Giant Eagle’s 40-year history of employing people who are differently abled, Jeremy leads the Company’s differently abled inclusion strategy.  Currently, he is focused on supporting and expanding the “embedded specialist” project in each of the Company’s major markets and leading its Abilities Business Resource Group.  Additionally, he is testing a job-carving strategy for people with more significant challenges at GetGo as well as ways to employ more people who are differently abled in Giant Eagle’s distribution centers. Additionally, Jeremy leads Giant Eagle’s United Way campaign, raising nearly two million dollars every year for the Pittsburgh community.

Heather Sedlacko, Director of Programs for Seniors and People with Disabilities at United Way of SWPA
heather.sedlacko@unitedwayswpa.org
Heather is the Director of Programs for Seniors and People with Disabilities at the United Way of Southwestern Pennsylvania.  In this role she directs the United Way Community Impact agency investments, as well as the United for Caregivers, Open Your Heart to a Senior, and 21 and Able initiatives. Before joining United Way, she was executive director of Valley Care Association, the Operations Manager at the Southwestern PA Partnership for Aging (SWPPA), and at a variety of senior service agencies as a social worker including home and community based, as well as residential, health and human service providers. 

**Webinar to start at 1PM Eastern Time**