Bridging the Equity Gap in Employment for Individuals with Disabilities

Matthew Smith, PhD, professor in the University of Michigan School of Social Work, joined Michigan Minds to discuss resources for individuals with developmental or intellectual disabilities who are seeking employment, including the Level Up Employment Skills Simulation Lab and the Job Interview Training for Transition-Age Youth

Michigan Minds Interview with Matthew Smith, PhD

In response to the need for more accessible ways for individuals with disabilities to secure employment, Smith founded the Level Up Lab which helps bridge the equity gap in employment opportunities for underserved groups. 

“Over the past 10 years, my research has mostly focused on adults with serious mental illness, where the employment rate was around or is around 25%. However, around 75% of this community voices their desire to work. So we see this huge gap between who wants to work and who is actually working,” he says. 

There are some services in place, such as the individual placement and support model of supported employment — known as IPS — but access to services are still limited compared to who needs the services, Smith says. 

“Our mission within the Level Up Lab is really to focus on developing and evaluating highly accessible ways to help these groups gain access and support their access to and support their ongoing employment.”

MATTHEW SMITH, PHD

For those on the Autism spectrum or who have other disabilities, interview skills can present a barrier to employment. To help overcome this, Smith collaborated with SIMmersion to create a comprehensive training system with virtual role-players. Called the “Job Interview Training for Transition-Age Youth,” the program provides an opportunity to practice interview skills through a dialogue with an actor portraying a hiring manager. The tool uses speech recognition software to recognize responses and generate feedback, and it also updates the mood of the hiring manager for a realistic and varied training experience. 

“Our data actually suggested that the optimal number of interviews to practice was nine — three with the easy character, three with the medium level of difficulty, and three with the hard character. And so overall, our trainees engage in this practice with the tool over several weeks, and they’ve been doing that out in the community, in mental health agencies, and special education programs, and through some of our work in prisons,” Smith says. 

A recent study that Smith authored outlines the improved job interview skills and interview confidence among clients of an individual placement and support model of supported employment programs. 

“One of our main takeaways from the study was that the clients who linger in employment services, they might be doing that because they’re avoiding job interviews. They’re sort of scared, or the job interview causes too much anxiety, or they might be not doing so well during the job interview, and once they’re able to practice their interview skills in a safe setting where they can make mistakes and get feedback, and no one’s judging them, then they were able to improve their skills, reduce their anxiety, and then find those jobs out in the community,” Smith says, emphasizing that this type of finding speaks to recommending that youth and adults with disabilities who are struggling with job interviews might benefit from adding this tool to their existing services. 

Smith says that he wants anyone listening or reading who is an individual with a disability who is seeking employment  to know that there are people out there trying to help and resources for them to use throughout the process. 

“From the employment specialist working with you every day, to research groups like the Level Up Lab, where we’re partnering with communities to develop tools that you can use to improve your chances of finding a job, especially for those who fear things like job interviews, where many of our research participants avoided job interviews for months or years, but then got to practice using the virtual interview training, which helped alleviate those fears and helped them get jobs—just know that there are people out there who are trying to help you.” 

Smith provided the following resources to learn more:

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