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Karen Scherer began her career as a work adjustment specialist at Morgan County Rehabilitation Center in Martinsville, Indiana. She was soon asked to serve as the coordinator for the supported employment grant received by the center in 1986.

In…

“I wish I had recorded all the stories that we heard during those interviews,” stated Bettye Dunham on interviewing Muscatatuck State Hospital and Training Center residents for jobs at the Jennings Training Center in the 1970s. She talked to…

This photograph shows a blind Works Progress Administration (WPA) worker operating a Braille machine at the Indiana State Library in Indianapolis. The photo, from the collection of the National Archives and Records Administration, was taken between…

“I haven't really seen progression in supported employment since the 1990s,” recalls Connie Ferrell. She was hired as a field coordinator for the new Indiana Employment Initiative in 1992. In her 2015 interview, Connie explains why she feels…

“To be part of that and to watch the leadership and those agencies catch fire…" Connie Ferrell recalls the excitement of introducing supported employment to Indiana in the early 1990s. "At the time they were doing it, it was like heresy. And they had…

"Customers come up to me and they'll talk to me like they've known me for years." Cori Mitchell loves her job at a movie theater. As a high school senior in Colorado she was left with a head injury from an automobile accident. Soon after, in 1989,…

A photograph of Columbus, Indiana resident Ethan Crough in front of the Commons, 300 Washington Street in Columbus on May 15, 2016. Ethan has been employed as a school administrator and an actor, among other professions. He has been active as a board…

This is an undated photograph associated with the institution known as Indiana Asylum for Feeble Minded Children (1879 - 1931) or the Fort Wayne State School for Feeble Minded Youth (renamed in 1931). The photograph depicts boys and young men in what…

On May 10, 2017, Indiana Governor Eric J. Holcomb signed Senate Enrolled Act (SEA) 390 into law. The passage of Indiana SB 290 “Employment First” legislation made Indiana one of 34 other states promoting employment as the first goal for people with…

“I remember her having a lot of apprehension,” recalls Patrick Sandy of a meeting with a mother on why her son could succeed in supported employment. When her son was born, physicians told her to put him in an institution and forget about him. Now,…