Why Mentors Matter for People With Disabilities
Ryan Knight is a Fellow at RespectAbility, a nonprofit organization fighting stigmas and advancing opportunities for people with disabilities.
Derek Shields, President of ForwardWorks Consulting, LLC and disability mentor, spoke to RespectAbility staff and Fellows about the importance of having a mentor to guide you through life and give advice. He began the discussion by providing an overview of the National Disability Mentoring Coalition, a national include initiative of Partners for Youth with Disabilities. The coalition’s mission is to “increase the awareness, quality, and impact of mentoring for individuals with disabilities across the nation.”
Shields explained that, according to MENTOR: The National Mentorship Partnership, one in three youth in America grow up without a mentor. Further, students with disabilities are 50 percent more likely to be absent from school than non-disabled peers, often grow up without employment expectations, and face advancement barriers when in workforce.
“Nearly half of college graduates with disabilities don’t have jobs, or find fulfilling careers,” Shields said. “Low employment expectations and low retention or advancement rates are reasons for breaking barriers – these are opportunities for mentoring to help break those barriers.”
He talked about several types of mentoring including youth-initiated mentoring, critical mentoring, disability, reverse and reciprocal. Shields stressed that at times the disability mentoring program is reported to be important for people with the same or similar disabilities. He also discussed several disability initiatives including the Susan M. Daniels Disability Hall of Fame mentoring recognition program and the NDMC White Paper on Mentoring as a Disability Inclusion Strategy.
Shields began his work in disability services in 1995 in a position supporting the Department of Defense Computer/Electronic Accommodations Program (CAP). CAP provides assistive technology and other accommodations to federal employees with disabilities and wounded Service members. He has since expanded his work with other assistive technology centers, including AT Centers at the Departments of Agriculture, Interior and Transportation. He attended the University of San Francisco in 1998-1999 and earned a Masters in Management and Disability Services. While in the Masters program, he met many educators, influencers and mentors that positively impacted his disability inclusion career and advocacy work, including Mary Lou Breslin, Marie Strahan, Andy Imparato, Laurie Macpherson, Pat Wright and a cohort of 25 other colleagues all working across the nation today to further disability rights and inclusion in their respective fields and communities.
Shields closed his talk by focusing on mentoring resources, including family, leveraging networks and using LinkedIn and Twitter to remain in contact with you organizations and to discover new mentors.
“Take time to connect with people,” Shields added. “You will learn a lot if you do.”
Born three months premature, resulting in spastic cerebral palsy, Ryan Knight gained a stutter at age three and learning disabilities later in life. A passionate writer, his goal is to write on behalf of the disability community. Becoming involved in the disability community felt natural to him because he wants to help others with disabilities so that they will not struggle like he has. At Linganore High School in Frederick, Maryland, Knight was a member of Best Buddies, a club that pairs a person with a disability and a person without a disability to engage in social activities together. Living with a disability has not deterred Knight from reaching his professional goals so that he can create the life he wants to live. Knight has never given up and will never give up on his dream of helping others through the written word. Before writing about issues affecting people with disabilities, Knight first wanted to get a college education and volunteer. At the age of 25 in 2006, he enrolled at Frederick Community College and majored in Human Services with a concentration in Developmental Problems. While at Frederick Community College, he volunteered at The Arc of Frederick County and The Arc at Market Street, nonprofit organizations that serve adults with disabilities in supported employment and provide respite care for adults with disabilities. Although he struggled in science and math classes, Knight never gave up; he just kept going like the Energizer Bunny until he finished classes. He was the first of his mom’s children to walk across the stage when he earned his associate’s degree in Human Services with a concentration in Developmental Problems in May 2012. After taking classes in an Occupational Therapy Assistant program and realizing that was not where his talents lie, he returned to his first love – writing. Knight knew he wanted to write for a career, but he did not know what he wanted to write – until he made the choice to enroll at Hood College, which Knight says is the best decision he has ever made. While enrolled at Hood College, Knight learned from skilled writers: a Hollywood publicist who has worked with Tom Cruise and Channing Tatum; a sports reporter who has written for The Washington Post, a Herald Mail news editor and a news reporter for The Baltimore Sun. He has focused on the disability community by creating an employment blog “The Discarded Eighty-Three;” the blog title refers to the then appalling statistic that 83 percent of people with disabilities were unemployed in 2016. The blog also helps people with disabilities to know that they have a voice that deserves to be heard just like the voices of everyone else in society. He also is a member of the academic honor society’s Delta Alpha Pi, a club that works to dispel myths about disabilities by spreading awareness of the community on campus. Knight graduated from Hood College in May 2018. He wants to use his journalism knowledge to create a magazine for people with disabilities by people with disabilities and to increase awareness of the disability community through motivational speaking.
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