More than 100 staff members from JobSight partner agencies learned the most up-to-date techniques of accommodating individuals with disabilities by attending a trio of intensive workshops hosted recently by the Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment Program, Inc. (EKCEP).

The workshops—entitled “Widening Our Doors”—gave JobSight personnel detailed explanations of the state’s top accessibility and awareness issues, presented by experts from the Department of Vocational Rehabilitation (DVR) and Kentucky’s premier comprehensive rehabilitation center.

The five-hour workshops were led by Bill Duke, state one-stop liaison for DVR, and Barbara Pugh and David Beach from the Carl D. Perkins Comprehensive Rehabilitation Center in Johnson County. The trio presented detailed information about state-of-the-art equipment and software that make computers easier for disabled persons to use, tips on ways to be aware of customers’ “hidden disabilities,” and the best ways to interact with persons with disabilities.

Although the “Widening Our Doors” program was created by the state Cabinet for Workforce Development, Department for Training and ReEmployment, with coordination from the Louisville-based Access Center Partnership and the University of Kentucky, it was EKCEP that “took the ball and ran with it” in terms of setting up the workshops to spread their message across eastern Kentucky, according to Mark Stone, EKCEP’s one-stop coordinator.

“The state had recommended that this information be shared ‘one-on-one’ or in small groups,” Stone said. “EKCEP has too big an area to cover to do that, so we created these sessions to make sure that the information was delivered consistently and effectively to a large audience.”

Stone said Duke, Pugh, and Beach presented the detailed and sometimes complicated information in ways that were easy for those attending the workshops to comprehend and absorb, including holding one of the workshops at the Carl D. Perkins Comprehensive Rehabilitation Center so the participants could see many examples of accessibility and disability awareness techniques in action.

“The one-stop partnership that EKCEP has developed with DVR allowed us to do all of this,” Stone said. “Working with the WIA’s spirit of cooperation between multiple agencies in mind, we were able to pull these extremely beneficial workshops off in a grand fashion.”

A total of 107 staff members from JobSight partner agencies throughout the 23-county EKCEP Workforce Investment Area attended the workshops, which were held in Bell, Johnson, and Perry counties. The attendees included staff from numerous JobSight Access Points and Affiliate Sites, as well as from the four JobSight comprehensive one-stop centers in Bell, Clay, Perry, and Pike counties.