Employment in Michigan

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the employment of adults with autism and other disabilities. Many posts have discussed programs to provide them with training and experience.

Breana Noble at The Detroit News:

Ford Motor Co. was the first employer to team with the Autism Alliance of Michigan nonprofit in 2016 to give job-ready candidates a chance to try out a job and be recruited. Three years later, 17 people are working there in full-time, part-time and contractor positions in Dearborn. Similar programs have been offered at dozens of employers across the state, including DTE Energy Co., General Motors Co. and MotorCity Casino Hotel. They have hired more than 150 workers with autism.
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In 2016, Ford began a greater effort to increase its diversity around the same time the Autism Alliance of Michigan wanted to create a pipeline to match businesses to workers with autism. FordInclusiveWorks launched that year with four participants in product development who had the chance to try out the job and then go through the company's formal recruitment process. All were hired.

A majority of what the alliance does happens before the employee enters a company, though. It leads candidates through a series of steps to prepare them for the workplace. Its experts go over their resumes and social media and work on communication skills. Business recruiters meet with candidates every month for mock interviews. Candidates take a skills and clinical assessment.

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In addition to supporting current job seekers, efforts are underway to give high school students with developmental disabilities on-the-job experience. Project Search, an initiative that began at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, has programs at several Metro Detroit employers, including DTE, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan and area health systems.

Autism Services: Pay Now, or Pay Later

Uncertainty and complexity are major themes of The Politics of Autism.

At Crain's Detroit Business, Ron Fournier writes about the Autism Alliance of Michigan and its "navigators." who answer the calls of autistic people and caregivers.

Navigators consult in-house specialists in autism education, clinical treatment, insurance and adult services. They refer callers to the cornucopia of uneven services available to people on the spectrum. Their notes go into a database, and they follow up on the callers for weeks, months or years — whatever is necessary.

Michigan legislators might cut state support for the program.

While I have a son with autism and I'm on the Autism Alliance board, this issue is bigger than my personal biases. According to Lt. Gov. Brian Calley, a Republican who has a daughter on the autism spectrum, the GOP legislation would jeopardize a variety of autism programs, as well as state services that improve mental health, combat child lead poisoning, give disabled people opportunities to live independently and that would provide caretakers a small raise.

Calley likes tax cuts and smaller budgets as much as the next Republican, but he considers these proposals to be short-sighted and fiscally foolish. It costs the state far less to give people with disabilities the tools they need to seek some measure of independence, Calley said, than it does to provide for them for life.

"If we get it right early, the long-term outcomes are better and more efficient. In other words, cheaper," Calley told me in a telephone interview.

A consistent theme in autism policy is very simple:  pay now, or pay later. 

Progress in Employment of ASD People

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the employment of adults with autism and other developmental disabilities. Many posts have discussed programs to provide them with training and experience.

Bryant Frazer reports at Studio Daily:

Founded in 2011, Exceptional Minds is a vocational school with a difference. Based in Sherman Oaks, CA, the digital arts school and studio educates autistic adults for careers in media and entertainment. That goal may be lofty, but it is hardly theoretical — in spring 2016, Exceptional Minds graduated its first class of students, some of whom are already working at Hollywood facilities. Others have joined Exceptional Minds' own digital studio, which has completed jobs on projects including Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and Avengers: Age of Ultron.

It's a big step for people that are in many cases marginalized. "We have a guy who was working at Albertson's [grocery]," says Exceptional Minds Executive Director Ernie Merlan. "They told him he'd never make it past Albertson's. He came to us for three years, and now he's working at Stargate Studios."

Bourree Lam reports at The Atlantic:

Interest in what’s called neurodiversity is growing at American companies. This year, the accounting firm EY (formerly known as Ernst & Young) has been piloting a program to employ people with autism in order to explore the benefits of having workers of different cognitive abilities, such as greater productivity and building a more talented workforce.
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[Prof. Rob] Austin explained that the push for neurodiversity in the workplace has Danish origins. Thorkil Sonne, a Danish telecom worker, was the instigator for bringing people with autism into the professional space. Sonne’s own son has autism and he founded the company Specialisterne in 2004 with the specific aim of employing people with autism and preparing them for the workforce. Employees at Specialisterne were high-functioning autistic people who were offered jobs in the IT and technology space.

“At some point, Thorkil wasn't making enough impact. He had 75 or so people employed, but he wanted to employ a million people with autism. So he changed his model, and started trying to convince big companies to do it,” says Austin. One of these companies was SAP, a huge software company, which hired people with autism to do software testing and analytics. The company now employs over 100 people on the autism spectrum, and that program served as a case study by Austin and his colleague Gary Pisano of Harvard Business School.

Two other companies that have been taking the lead on this are HP Enterprises (via an initiative called the Dandelion program in Australia) and Microsoft. In the SAP case study, the company found employees who had advanced degrees and patents in their names, but still weren’t able to land corporate jobs. Austin says that the talent is there, but often missed because of the over-reliance on the interview process or the lack of flexibility on the part of companies. And now, the interest in these workers, which began in the tech industry, seems to be spreading to other industries and job functions as well.

Benjamin Raven reports at MLive:

After a successful pilot period, Ford Motor Co. has expanded a hands-on program to give people with autism the chance to gain work experience with the Dearborn automaker.

The FordInclusiveWorks Autism Program looks to match participants with skills and that fit their capabilities and evaluates them for potential future employment opportunities.

The program is funded by the Autism Alliance of Michigan.

Plea for Michigan Mandate

The Detroit Free Press carries a plea from David Meador, cofounder of the Autism Alliance of Michigan, who argues on the basis of economics and equal rights:

Most Michigan families simply can’t afford to treat their child’s autism without insurance coverage. Treatment can cost as much as $50,000 per year. That means families are forced to watch their children suffer, with little or no ability to help them. No matter how you look at it, that’s torture for parents – and for their children.

Compounding the problem in Michigan is that relatively few autism therapists practice here because there is no insurance coverage to pay them. Michigan could grow the profession here, expanding access for thousands of patients, if autism were covered. It would also allow us to keep more of our college graduates in Michigan.

There is no cure for autism, but studies show that behavioral therapy can dramatically improve symptoms. With proper treatment, children can vastly increase language and communication skills and improve their quality of life. They can succeed at school, make friends and become participating members of their communities.

Michigan insurers provide coverage for a host of other less prevalent diseases, including cancer, epilepsy and diabetes. Yet they continue to deny coverage to the tens of thousands of individuals affected by autism. This disparity must end.

Michigan citizens with autism deserve the same access to proven medical treatments as those individuals affected by other conditions.

Autism Alliance of Michigan

As Tocqueville explained, Americans have the habit of forming associations to handle public problems. Crain's Detroit Business has a case study:

Two Detroit businessmen who have children with autism are making the rounds of companies and foundations to drum up financial support to open a multipurpose autism center.

Dave Meador, CFO of DTE Energy Co., and Stephen D'Arcy, global automotive leader with PricewaterhouseCoopers L.L.P. and chairman of the Detroit Medical Center, have formed the nonprofit Autism Alliance of Michigan as the vehicle to develop the center.

Last month, Susan Fenters Lerch was hired as CEO of the Autism Alliance. Lerch previously worked for 13 years at the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Michigan.

Meador and D'Arcy both have autistic offspring and have faced difficulties first in identifying and diagnosing their problems when they were young and then finding appropriate education and medical therapies.

See here for legislative activity by Meador and D'Arcy