A job opportunity for everybody

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David Pisciotto is a Villa Esperanza success story.

Villa Esperanza Services guides its clients to becoming valuable employees in many local stores and business operations. A unique success story with the nonprofit group has been inspirational for everybody involved.

By Ward Lauren / Special to The Malibu Times

For a developmentally disabled adult, getting a job of any kind that will pay even minimum wage can be a difficult, if not impossible, task. Naturally slow to learn, the person’s need for equally slow, patient training requires more time and attention than most employers feel they can afford to spend on individual workers.

Through a dedicated program called job coaching, this task is taken over by specially trained employees of the nonprofit agency Villa Esperanza Services. Its Job Development and Community Placement programs are beginning to make a noticeable cut in the 75 percent unemployment rate suffered by people with development disabilities.

Founded in 1961 by a group of parents who believed their developmentally disabled children deserved quality care and education, Villa Esperanza has expanded to provide a variety of services for a special-needs population that ranges from children to senior citizens.

The agency’s West Region office in Thousand Oaks serves Ventura County and the western portion of Los Angeles County, operating from Malibu to Simi Valley and east to Pasadena. The office recently experienced a unique success story, a precedent-setting case of achievement from within, that should be an inspiration to anyone involved with the developmentally disabled.

Since 2001 the office has held a contract with the California Department of Parks and Recreation to provide custodial and grounds keeping services for local beaches. Two crews of clients, each supervised by a job coach, empty all trash bins, replace liners, and clean and wash rest rooms. They also restock supplies and pick up litter five days a week, six hours per day.

This February, one of the two supervisory positions became open and, to the surprise of everyone, one of the Malibu crews’ own clients, 31-year-old David Pisciotto of Thousand Oaks, applied for the job. This had never happened before.

“We were rather shocked to receive his application,” said Robert Efford, director of vocational training and West Region programs. “But we obviously had to consider it seriously just as we would any other applicant. Well, he met all our criteria for the position. He drives, he has no criminal history, he’s conscientious and considerate with the other clients, and he has experience on the job, which an outside applicant would not.”

Efford had to consult with the senior counselor at the Thousand Oaks branch of the state Department of Rehabilitation, which provides funding for the organization. He asked if the department could authorize and fund the support of a special job coach to work with Pisciotto for a limited time to ensure that he became comfortable with his new duties and learned all the job functions. And the answer was-yes.

“David has now passed his 90- day probationary period and done remarkably well,” Efford said. “We’re extremely proud of his accomplishments. He is a valued member of our staff and his story serves as an example for other developmentally disabled adults, to show them what may be possible for them, too, with the proper support and determination.”

Efford encouraged community employers to realize that developmentally disabled adults can be capable employees, often more dependable than many others in the same position. When Villa Esperanza places a client in a new job, a job coach goes along to help train him or her in the requirements of the work.

“We go to the orientation with the client, say to Ralphs, and help him or her learn that as a courtesy clerk ‘you push the basket for the customer, you collect them this way, in bagging you put the heaviest items first, the eggs on top,’ and so on,” Efford said. “To you and me it’s simplistic, of course, but to people who are developmentally delayed-which is another way to describe their condition, there is a delay, in understanding what’s being asked of them. But once they get it, it’s routine; they don’t need a job coach then.

“The whole thing is getting them up to speed, and most employers don’t have the time to train a client this way. That’s where we come in. The beauty of it is, I can go to an employer and tell him truthfully, ‘This client you’ve hired will be here for years. He’ll be reliable, dependable, and in a business with a high turnover of personnel, where an employee will jump ship for another fifty cents an hour, this client won’t, he’ll be so grateful to have that job.'”

West Region office programs now serve Malibu, Calabasas, Agoura, Westlake Village, Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley, Moorpark, Newberry Park and are being expanded into Oxnard and Ventura, Efford said. Clients have been placed in various businesses.

“We recently placed a young disabled Malibu resident, the daughter of a celebrity, in Ralphs, where we’re job coaching her,” Efford said. “She’s doing very well and we’re so proud of her success.”

In addition to group-supported employment programs such as the Malibu beach work crews and Job Development and Community Placement services, the West Region office also provides Independent Living Services to support disabled clients who are ready to transition to independent living, and Care Management Outreach Collaboration for at-risk seniors seeking to remain as independent and self-determined as possible.

Further information about Villa Esperanza can be obtained at the organization’s Web site, www.villaesperanzaservices.org, or by calling 805.496.6562.