Windmills Training: Understanding Your Attitudes and Perceptions about Disabilities

The mission of Goodwill of Central and Coastal Virginia is changing lives….helping people help themselves through the power of work.? Thiry-eight percent of our current workforce has a disability or barrier to work.? By 2030, we want to increase this number to 70%.? Goodwill Academy? of Virginia was created to support this vision and to provide our associates with the training they need to reach their highest level of self-sufficiency.

This year we introduced Windmills Training to help supervisors and managers establish positive relationships with the associates they lead.? The Windmills Training is designed to increase awareness of the role that attitudes play in the employment of people with disabilities.? Through participatory exercises, participants are able to identify emotions, stereotypes and attitudinal barriers that may make them less effective managers when dealing with persons with disabilities.? Through group discussions the participants will reach an understanding of those attitudes and will learn methods and techniques to assist them in becoming more effective managers

At the end of the course, we asked participants to list what they learned from this training and what they are committed to doing or changing based on participating in this training.? Most of the answers related to the following themes:

What did I learn?

• I didn’t realize how much I didn’t know about working with people with disabilities.
• Understanding my own biases and perceptions.
• Focus on an individual’s abilities and not their disability.

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What am committed to doing or changing?

• Learning more about different disabilities.
• Asking more questions and communicating with individuals before I make assumptions about what they need.
• Taking an American Sign Language course

So far, 46 Associates have been trained in Windmills.? We have four more sessions planned.? In addition to Windmills, we also launched Trauma Informed Care in 2023 and Mental Health First Aid this year.? Trauma Informed Care helps leaders understand the challenging behaviors of others with empathy.? Mental First Aid teaches people how to recognize signs of mental health or substance use challenges, how to offer and provide initial help, and how to guide a person toward appropriate care if necessary.?

For more information about these courses or Goodwill Academy of Virginia, you can contact Everett Shupe, Vice President of Leadership and Workforce Development at [email protected].