Entrepreneurship and Community Economic Development

Disability and Work:
Entrepreneurship and
Community Economic
Development
Aldred H. Neufeldt
Community Rehabilitation &
Disability Studies
University of Calgary
Keynote address at “A Manitoba Conference - Business
Development for Persons with Disabilities”, sponsored by
Network of Entrepreneurs with Disabilities (Manitoba),
Winnipeg, March 23, 2002.

A few compelling statistics
Data from Statistics Canada’s Health Activity Limitation Surveys in
1986 and 1991. See Neufeldt & Mathieson (1995) and Neufeldt &
Albright (1998).
1986
All working age
Cdns
• 78% in labour
force
• 8% unemployed
Working age
disabled Cdns
• 48% in labour
force
• 7% unemployed
Question: is this
• systemic
exclusion?
1991
All working age
Cdns
• 80% in labour
force
• 8% unemployed
Working age
disabled Cdns
• 56% in labour
force
• 8% unemployed
• untapped
potential?

Purpose
• Summarize the changing focus
of how we think about disability
and work
• Give some examples of ‘Best
Practice’
• Consider what can be learned
from these examples
• Discuss possibilities

Changing Focus of how we
think about Disability & Work
• Fit in regular work - oldest
expectation (new expression -
Rotary’s current project)
• Sheltered work - to support, to
protect - developed in 17th century -
and continues
• Work place accessibility subsidies -
mid-20th century
• Supported employment - 1970s
• Self-directed employment - 1990s

Self-directed Employment
Where people with disabilities, to
a significant degree, have a
prime decision-making role in
determining the kind of work
that is done, how time is
allocated, what types of
investments in time and money
are made, and how to allocate
revenue generated
From Neufeldt & Albright, 1998.

5 general approaches to
self-directed employment
• Self-employed (from consultant
to kiosk to cocoa nut picking)
• Small business
• Worker owned and directed
cooperative
• Business subsidiary
• Community economic
development (cEd vs CeD)
On Community Economic Development, and the different emphases, see
references to Church and to Shragge

Some Models from around
the World
• Sole proprietor/personal
corporation support - Bay St.
George
• Market creation - MicroLink
• Social Enterprise - Berlin
• Worker Cooperative - Churchill
Park
• Community Development -
Morong
• Alternative Trade Organizations
Examples taken from Neufeldt & Albright (1998), and video Business as
Usual

Barriers to Employment -
in Canada and elsewhere
Common
• Education
• Opportunity to gain workrelated
skills
• Accessibility
• Transportation
Specific to Self-directed Employ’t
• Entrepreneurial skill
• Management
• Access to resources

Strategies commonly used
• Advisory services (3)*
• Education and training (2)*
• Funding (1)*
• Awareness raising about disability
and work**
• Marketing**
• Equipment**
• Community development**
* Numbers 1 - 3 are the strategies most frequently
used in our Study, the numbers indicating the rank
order.
** Successful self-directed employment creation
programs used not only the ‘top 3’ strategies, but
the others as well at the same time and consistently

Key Elements
• Entrepreneurial attitude
• Access to funding
• Appropriate skills training
• Business Approach - feasibility
studies, marketing, information
• Participation and control by
people with disabilities
• Appropriate ongoing support
• Consultation services available
• Package approach in strategy
use

4 Cornerstones
• Self-directed Identity - how we think of
ourselves
• The right ‘Know-how’
– Literacy/numeracy
–technical
– business practices
• Resourcing
– Business advisory services
– Financial & other capital support
– Promoting personal savings
– Marketing assistance
• Enabling Environments
– Rights based approach to employment
– Economic opportunity
We’ve not paid enough attention to the “self”

Thinking some more about
CED
Issues that push us out of current
ways of thinking about work
and disability:
• the question of ‘self’ -
confidence, experience,
expectation
• the question of opportunity -
particularly in small
communities
• the question of social
expectation

Guidelines for getting started
• It doesn’t matter where one
starts - so long as one starts
• Attend to process
• Learn by doing - when mistakes
are made, learn from them
• Develop disabled persons’
participation & control
• Nourish strong leadership
• Create appropriate support or
organizational structures -
business for business, social
support for social support

Getting started (cont’d)
• Organize peer training and
support
• Find effective partners
(business, gov’t, community)
• Find flexible and multiple
funding sources - relying on
single sources recipe for failure
• Cultivate patience - one needs it
• Form supportive networks -
when failure occurs, as it will,
we need support to go on

References
1. Church, K. (1997) Because o where we’ve been: the business
behind the business of psychiatric survivor economic
development. Toronto: Ontario Council of Alternative
Businesses.
2. Neufeldt, A.H. & R. Mathieson (1995). Empirical dimensions of
discrimination against disabled people. Health and Human
Rights J., 1 (2), 174-189.
3. Neufeldt, A.H. & A. Albright (1998). Disability and Self-directed
employment: Business Development Models. North York:
Captus Press; and, Ottawa: IDRC. (348pp)
4. Neufeldt, A.H., Executive Producer; S. Kozak, Producer, A.
Albright, Coordinator (1994): Business As Usual. Self-directed
Employment by Disabled People. Calgary: Missing Link
Productions, 34 min. video.
NOTE: This video was awarded First Prize in the International Vision
Category of films/videos at the International Congress, Rehabilitation
International, Auckland, N.Z., October, 1996.
5. Shragge, E. (1997). Community economic development: in search of
empowerment, 2nd ed. Montreal: Black Rose Books