“Am I Not?” A Conversation with Angela Greene on Leaving the Sheltered Workshop for Competitive I...

In this episode, we talk with Angela Greene. After 21 years in a sheltered workshop, she left in favor of competitive integrated employment as a Dining Room Attendant at the University of South Carolina. She is also a founding member and secretary of I.M.P.A.C.T. South Carolina (https://impactinsc.com/) . This podcast is a continuation of Angela’s presentation during the DETAC webinar, Employment First 2.0: Developing a Foundation for Excelling Systems Change Efforts through Legislative Action (https://aoddisabilityemploymenttacent...) . Angela is also a poet. Listen to the end of this podcast to hear her read two of her poems, “Am I Not” and “Everybody Wants to Rule the World”.   Transcript Announcer: You’re listening to the AoD Disability Employment Technical Assistance Center podcast, where we learn from people who are working to improve competitive integrated employment and economic outcomes for people with disabilities. In today’s episode, we talk with Angela Greene. After 21 years in a sheltered workshop, she left in favor of competitive integrated employment as a Dining Room Attendant at the University of South Carolina. She is also a founding member and secretary of Impact South Carolina. Today’s podcast is a continuation of Angela’s presentation during our webinar, “Employment First 2.0: Developing a Foundation for Excelling Systems Change Efforts through Legislative Action”. Angela is also a poet. Listen to the end of this podcast to hear her read two of her poems, “Am I Not” and “Everybody Wants to Rule the World”. Amy Gonzalez: Hello everyone and welcome to a podcast that we have today featured with self advocate, Angela Green. This podcast is a continuation of the National Community of Practice webinar that we facilitated in January, “Employment First 2.0: Developing a Foundation for Excelling Systems Change Efforts through Legislative Action”. In that webinar, we featured a few grantees that were moving the needle on competitive integrated employment through legislative action. So we heard from a Center for Independent Living in South Carolina by the name of ABLE South Carolina. And through that, we identified a self advocate that was formally in the sheltered workshop. So we are with Angela Green today, and we are just delighted to have her with us. And what we’re going to do today is take a deeper dive into Angela’s journey to competitive, integrated employment. And so what I’m going to do now is start off by welcoming Angela. Angela, thank you so much for being here with us today. We are so excited to talk to you more about your former life in a sheltered workshop and about your job as a dining room attendant. What I am going to do is just talk you through a series of questions that we have for you at the DETAC. Can you introduce yourself again, please? What is your name? Angela Greene: Hi, my name is Angela Greene and I’m a self advocate. Amy Gonzalez: Thank you so much, Angela. Can you please tell us what city and state you are from? Angela Greene: I am from Richland County, Columbia, South Carolina. Amy Gonzalez: South Carolina. That is wonderful. Now what we understand based upon your excellent presentation in January, Angela, is that you formally were in a sheltered workshop for 21 years from 1994 until 2015. In the amazing presentation that you gave, you talked a little bit about working in a sheltered workshop Monday through Friday, making about $3 an hour. Can you tell me a little bit more about what you did in the sheltered workshop when you were there? Angela Greene: Well, when I was in the sheltered workshop, what my jobs were: cleaning offices, I would dust offices, and I would do bathrooms and wipe down tables and take trash out, that sort of thing. Amy Gonzalez: Now were these tasks something that you like to do or did they just tell you that you needed to do those types of jobs there in the shelter workshop? Angela Greene: Um, It … it’s a … it was more of not … I didn’t really, wasn’t crazy about my job and jobs I did. No, I, I didn’t fancy them. Amy Gonzalez: Yeah. I can understand that, you know, when somebody is, isn’t given a choice to choose the type of work they wanna do that it can cause feelings of, you know, not really being excited about the work that you’re doing. What can you tell me about the sheltered workshop? Did you have friends? Was it lonely? Was it a scary place? What, what can you tell me about being there? Angela Greene: Um, it was not a scary place, but I didn’t really have friends because as you can see, I’m, I’m a very outgoing person, but the kind of relationships, if you will, I had at the workshop, weren’t very friendly. So no, I didn’t have a lot of friends. Amy Gonzalez: Well, I’m sorry to hear that, but, but I know that you have some exciting things to t...