NONPROFITS: Developmentally disabled reach out to potential employers

Like many others, Monique Medina is out of work and looking for a job. But unlike many others, Medina is developmentally disabled, which is likely to make getting a job harder.

But Medina, 27, will be getting the chance to talk in front of employers and tell her story under a unique program started earlier this year by Bethpage-based Family Residences and Essential Enterprises Inc., a nonprofit that provides services to children and adults with developmental disabilities.

FREE, as the organization is known, began the Free Your Mind program earlier this year, sending 12 developmentally disabled adults to speak at colleges.

"These are men and women who are interested in educating people as to what it's like living with a disability," said Chris Long, FREE's chief operations officer. "We let them design their own presentation."

Long said some of the speakers have already visited colleges, and companies are now being lined up. Where might the speakers be sent?

"A good example would be the banking industry," Long said. "They come into contact with people who have disabilities all the time. So does the retail and the airline sector."

Lisa Caffrey, an advocacy coordinator at FREE who runs the speakers' bureau, said the program kicked off in January.

"A lot of the presentations are aimed at employment," Caffrey said. "We eventually want to go across the country" with the program.

Medina, who lives at a FREE group home in Ridge, described a difficult childhood that included abuse.

"I get teary eyes and a lot of questions" at colleges when she talks about her background, Medina said. "I'm looking for anything now because I really want to work," she said.