Disability Employment Awareness Month

October is Disability Employment Awareness Month (NDEAM). Initiated by Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett in 2012, Project SEARCH provides young adults with developmental disabilities the opportunity to do unpaid internships with County government in order to develop knowledge and work skills that will lead to paid employment. Seventy percent of Montgomery County’s program graduates have found paid employment, which is well above the national average. The combined, annual earning potential of all Project SEARCH graduates is an average of $650,000. Incidentally, this results in an average, Social Security savings to taxpayers of $300,000 a year. For more information about NDEAM, visit the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Disability Employment Policy website. View the County’s video.