(ABC 6 News) – Minnesota’s near-record low unemployment combined with an increasing number of job openings has had some employers looking for new ways to find workers to fill positions.

One group of people may play an important role in solving that issue.

People with disabilities, either visible or not, can often find themselves struggling to both find and hold onto a job.

But for many, a little help is all they need.

Jane Fleming has always struggled figuring out where to work.

“When I was looking for jobs independently, I filled out all the applications and stuff,” she said. “But I was not really motivated to go in and like turn them in and stuff like that.”

Her disability, a combination of things hidden beneath the surface, made success an uncertainty.

“At first there was, my mom and my manager didn’t think that I was going to be able to be independent, have a job, do all this stuff.”

Then she found Opportunity Services, a non-profit dedicated to, among other things, supporting individuals with disabilities find and maintain employment.

“What the state has seen, or the studies show is that it can be a revolving door,” said Director of Supported Employment Laurie Ackerman. “Get a job, have a bad day, lose a job.”

They helped her find a job much faster than she had been able to on her own.

“My mom was proud of me too and I’m proud of myself,” Fleming said. “But I could go, I could do more.”

Programs like Opportunity Services rely heavily on government funding.

Recently, Minnesota’s Department of Employment and Economic Development, or DEED, received a federal grant to help provide greater support to young people with disabilities looking for a job.

“That’s the ultimate goal here right, is to support these individuals to seek out a career,” said Cory Schmid, a program manager for the Office of Youth Development at DEED. “A self-sustaining career in a field that makes most sense to them.”

Though southeast Minnesota won’t be on the receiving end of this particular grant, the lessons learned from the program will be universal.

“They provide the exact same kind of menu of services that these WDA’s in this project are doing. And so best practices that we learn from this project for example will be shared with the other WDA’s across the state.”

Money like that goes a long way to giving people opportunities.

People, like Jane. 

“I’m not gonna lie and say ‘I can’t do anything,'” she said. “I can do quite a bit.”

For more information on the DEED grant, click here.
For disability support resources in the Rochester area, click here.