In June of 2011, UCP submitted a proposal to Meyer Memorial Trust, which was created by the late Fred G. Meyer. The Trust invests in people, ideas and efforts that deliver significant social benefit to Oregon and Clark County, Washington.

In our proposal, we requested $150,000 ($50,000 per year for 3 years) to increase the capacity of our supported employment program, which is known as Employment Solutions. Employment Solutions assists adults with developmental disabilities to identify, obtain and retain competitive employment from community businesses.

We are pleased to announce that our efforts were successful, and that we have been awarded the $150,000! We will use this funding to hire three new Job Developers (one per year), which will allow us to support far more people in our program.

Employment is such an important part of life. As we stated in our proposal to Meyer Memorial Trust, “A job can dramatically change the dynamics of an individual's life—providing a structure to the day, a paycheck…, an identity as a contributing member of the community, an increase in personal self-esteem, expanded choices, and opportunities to develop…relationships. Employment is an avenue to a richer and fuller life.”

The History of UCP’s Supported Employment Program

UCP first began providing supported employment in 2007, when we received a grant from the United Way. Since then, we have supported hundreds of adults as they progressed towards employment.

Key features of UCP’s supported employment program are: 

1. Real work: Work that would be performed by someone without a disability.
2. Real wages: Pay that is commensurate to wages paid for comparable work performed by someone without a disability.
3. Integrated work environment: Most coworkers are people without disabilities who work in close proximity and regularly interact with employees with disabilities.
4. Ongoing support: Supported employment assumes that people with developmental disabilities will need some support ongoing over time, and that support can come from a variety of sources, including coworkers.

 
Special Thanks

The funding from Meyer Memorial Trust will allow us to double the capacity of our program. We are very excited to get started on this project.

We wish to give a special thanks to everyone at Meyer Memorial Trust, especially Kim Thomas. We also wish to thank the UCP Board members and UCP employees who were involved in completion and presentation of the proposal. And, of course, we wish to thank Jamie Snider, who contracted with us to write the grant, for doing such an excellent job presenting UCP’s history and culture, and, of course, our goals for the project.