Students with disabilities
Additional resources for students with disabilities
Most of the resources in the 'For Students' section of this website and the services that we offer are just as relevant to you as they are to students who don’t have disabilities, but there are some additional resources that may be of help to you.
Graduate Careers Australia has written an excellent book called 'Careers for Graduates with Disability' which can be collected from the Careers and Employment office or viewed online. It contains advice about disclosure, profiles of graduates and lots of useful information about finding work and managing your disability in the workplace.
The Australian Employers’ Network on Disability facilitates a 4 week paid internship program, "Stepping into...", specifically designed to enable university students with a disability to undertake work experience within a leading organisation. Disciplines catered for in 2009 include Law, Human Resources, Marketing, IT, Accounting, and Public Policy and Research.
To be eligible students must have a disability and be enrolled in their last or penultimate year of a relevant degree at a recognised university. Further information is available here.
You may be interested in a mentoring program called the 'Willing and Able Mentoring (WAM) Program' that has been established to link students with a disability with a mentor in their field of interest. More information is available at Graduate Careers.
There are a number of employment agencies that specialise in assisting people with disabilities to find employment. One of these is Wesley Employment Services who run a graduate preparation service for final year students. This is a year-long program for eligible job seekers (i.e. Centrelink assessed) consisting of job search support, skills development and work experience, in order to prepare them for graduate positions at the end of their degree. They also offer generalised job search assistance for students at any other stage of their course who might be looking for casual/part-time work.
Disability Works Australia works with employers to facilitate the provision of employment opportunities for people with a disability. They list job vacancies on their website.
The Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations hosts a website called JobAccess for job seekers with a disability and employers wishing to employ individuals with a disability.