Tool Kit
Local Coordinators can find the toolkit below with helpful forms and information for local committees in starting and continuing a local Disability Mentoring Day event in their community. If you have questions, call the State Coordinator, Cody Harris at (620) 792-1321 or KCDC Executive Director Martha Gabehart at (800) 295-5232 or email her at
[email protected]
What do Local Coordinators and Committees Do?
A Local DMD Coordinator chairs a local DMD committee that is comprised of representatives from the following organizations in your community: education, service providers, and employment/employers.
If you are connected to an organization that works with people with disabilities and/or employment in your community, you can serve as a local coordinator.
Local DMD Committees facilitate job career exploration experiences between Mentees with disabilities and local businesses. These could include:
- One-On-One Job Shadowing, which individually pairs a Mentee with a workplace Mentor to learn more about a typical day on the job and how to prepare for that particular career
- Group visits to work sites, in which Mentees tour a workplace or meet with various employees on the job and learn first hand about different types of jobs and related opportunities within that career field.
- Diverse Programmatic Events: kick-off breakfasts, all-day informational seminars, and/or end-of-day receptions for all community participants to attend.
- Career fairs that could include job readiness workshops for mentees, mentor workshops on disability etiquette and job accommodations for mentors.
- Panel discussion of employees with disabilities and/or employers of people with disabilities. A master of ceremonies facilitates questions to the panel and students and job seekers are able to listen and hear of others’ experiences and what employers expectations, etc.
All of these events, plus other scenarios that take place on Disability Mentoring Day, provide an opportunity for the program participants to share their experiences and build a much broader and beneficial network of relationships.
How a particular community decides to do Disability Mentoring Day depends on the desires of the local DMD committee and what will work best for that community and their situation. All of the formats listed above have been done very successfully in Kansas.