Hu Zhikai, 20 years old, has been working in wheat baking in Huiling, Guangzhou, for more than six months. From not being able to control your emotions very well, to slowly learning to get along with teachers and colleagues in the working environment, and learning to do your job well. He did what seemed impossible before.
Growing up, the company of the family, also needs the letting go of the family
Before coming to Guangzhou Huiling, the Kai family went through the study process of Meng Mu's three migrations.
When Kai Kai was a child, he lived with his parents in Zhuhai. However, because the primary school at that time did not have a good integrated education environment, coupled with the physical reasons of my grandfather, when the first grade opened, the family moved back to their hometown of Dali.
In Dali, Kai kai spent his elementary school years, but the older he got, the more problems he had to face. "In fact, I can't keep up with my studies at the beginning of the fifth grade, and I can't keep up with junior high school." Kai Kai Mom said. In order to find a better future for Kaikai, the family relocated again and came to Guangzhou.
Now, Kai kai has reached the third grade of a vocational high school in Liwan, and through the introduction of a teacher, he has come to Guangzhou Huiling Service Agency for the Mentally Handicapped to conduct a wheat baking internship.
In my mother's eyes, the opening and opening of the work environment is huge.
He is more sensitive to certain things, such as fear of hearing children crying, and does not like to hear sharp voices. But for his own work and dreams, he overcame a lot. When I first went to the internship, I stopped working for two weeks to rest at home due to emotional problems. Recognized the magnitude of the problem. He began to understand that "you can't lose your temper there, and it will affect other people." ”
Mom was very relieved, and the emotional control of Kai Kai was much better than before. When he is unhappy at work now, he will sneak to the third floor, go to the bathroom to vent, or call his mother, calm his emotions, and then go back to the workshop.
At first, my mother was not at ease: "His sense of direction is not very strong, and his navigation is not good." But then I felt that worrying didn't work, and if he didn't let go, his abilities would never be exercised. ”
Now Kaikai is very active in going to work every day. "One day he got up late and was afraid of being late, so he said to me, 'Mom, I don't eat breakfast, I'm afraid I'm late.'" ”
In addition to going to work, he also likes gourd silk. Every day after taking the subway home from work, he would go to buy vegetables to cook for his mother to eat, sweep and mop the floor, help his mother do housework, and come back from running at night to write a diary.
Kai Kai said: "In the future, I want to be a chef." Because I want to cook stir-fry dishes for everyone to eat. Everybody likes what I make for them to eat, and they'll be happy. Mom said, "I hope he learns some skills in wheat baking, to make cakes, bread and so on." In a few years, we can go back to our hometown of Dali to open an inn. ”
But in fact, when the opening is just baked in the wheat, it is not in line with the conditions of the post.
Emotional stability and the ability to communicate autonomously are basic requirements
Lu Weixia is the head of wheat baking. "Huiling has been established in 1990 for 32 years now, and in the field of mental disability services, in terms of concept, experience and scale, it is a relatively pioneering institution in China." Lu Weixia joined in 2018 because she agreed with Hui Ling's concept and came to Wheat Baking, "Here I can be on the front line, the most real way to help people with mental disabilities to reintegrate into the community through work."
Hui ling has been promoting the employment of people with mental disabilities, but the success rate is not high. Summing up the experience of these years, Hui Ling has started her own wheat baking, as a social enterprise to help people with mental disabilities find employment, and to explore what ways to help them better enter the workplace.
Wheat baking gradually figured out a process. "With new trainees joining, we first do a career adaptability assessment, including work attitude, work behavior, interpersonal relationships, transportation ability and so on. Then, according to the evaluation results and the students' own wishes, help him match the suitable positions. Lu Weixia introduced.
This assessment only takes about half a day, but then it requires the trainees to go to the work scene to assess the degree of work support, which takes a month or two.
"Through the work support assessment, we can understand where the obstacles of the trainees are and what aspects of the obstacles he does not have. Then split the post into parts he can complete and put him in the right position. ”
Wheat baking work, including ingredients, mixing, styling, baking, packaging, delivery and other processes. Some positions need to be sensitive to numbers and do not require fine hand movements, such as ingredients; some posts, the requirements for digital cognition are not high, but they must be fine, such as modeling; some students lack movement and concentration, but they are more extroverted and active, you can try the delivery of posts.
For each student, the institution will develop an individualized support plan. Use professional tools to guide and support them to achieve their goals and aspirations, and guide them to achieve the level of work of able-bodied people as much as possible when working. "When he's able to play out without obstacles, sometimes we find that he's a little bit better than an able-bodied person."
"The results of the initial assessment do not meet the basic entry requirements for wheat baking." Lu Weixia said, "Because our most basic requirements are emotional stability and the ability to communicate autonomously." ”
But wheat baking has done many other types of employment services for people with mental disabilities over the years, believing that it can help him adjust himself and make progress in the employment process.
They need a convergent, normalized environment
When Kai kai first joined the company, it was true that as expected, there were emotional problems. When the teacher corrects his mistakes, he will understand it as criticizing him, and when he is emotionally angry, he will take the door out.
Lu Weixia said: "At that time, I was also worried about whether he could continue to work in wheat. We quickly approached parents to discuss the method. "Kai Kai is placed next to a sound baker, and when he sees what others are doing, and the teacher corrects him, he will change it. Such an integrated working environment is better than verbally correcting him.
Another time, because the teacher corrected his temper, he yelled in the bread production workshop, scaring another student into crying. Lu Weixia saw kaikai's touch because of his colleagues crying and found that "he could realize the impact of such behavior on the people next to him." ”
After this incident, Lu Weixia and Kai Kai said that they would apologize to their colleagues to see if they could forgive. "As a result, colleagues said they would not forgive him, he was too fierce. I told him again that you should try to buy a bottle of drink for your colleague and send it over to see if he could forgive you. Colleagues like to drink a lot. Later, we found that Kai Kai still had a sense of money, and when he knew that he was going to spend money to buy a forgiveness, he would not dare to lose his temper so easily next time. ”
Lu Weixia found that a fusion, normalized environment allows autistic children to contact things that they have mostly only heard verbally before, and real scenes make it easier for them to understand things.
After a few months, Kai Kai will no longer lose his temper, and when he has emotions, the most he can do is shout "I don't play with you anymore." Lu Weixia is looking forward to it, and when there is unhappiness after opening, she can express it or explain herself in a better way. "Then our work is too meaningful!"
"There is nothing difficult about teaching young people"
He Minfa is the director of the wheat baking production department, and usually everyone calls him Fa Ge. Fa Ge is also paying attention to the changes in Kai kai. He said that the new students start with relatively simple cleaning, and then learn the difficult steps such as kneading dough and ingredients. Kai kai's main responsibility is to clean the baking pan, the sink, and learn to knead the dough after doing the hygiene meeting.
Fa Ge said that there is nothing difficult to teach young people, "This industry is all practice makes perfect, but one thing they will learn a little longer." ”
In wheat baking, in addition to autism trainees, there are also trainees who have other obstacles. One of them, a student who was mistaken for a mentally handicapped person, the teacher of wheat baking, found that he was actually hearing impaired, but because he was affected by hearing impairment as a child, he did not receive a good education and support, resulting in him lagging behind his peers in many aspects. After coming to the wheat baking, under the one-on-one guidance of the teacher, he quickly improved rapidly and did a very good job.
In fact, there are many obstacles that may be caused by society, because they are born special, because they have no way to obtain the resources they need, which leads to them lagging behind others.
Because of social barriers, it is difficult for young people to express their strengths through words when applying for a job, and they need to show them in the process of actually doing it. This is not available in the general recruitment process. Recruiters just see their handicapped side during the interview process and can't discover those abilities they don't have.
The supportive employment explored by wheat baking will put the young people in the working environment first, discover the strengths, and then do job splitting, adjustment, and matching to their suitable positions. This part of the preliminary work is difficult for enterprises to take the initiative to bear. Lu Weixia felt: "If there is a professional employment counselor involved, it is the best." There is no way to ask a corporate recruiter to know a lot of social work common sense and assessment tools. If there is a career counselor who can intervene in the initial matching work and the part of job adaptation, the chances of employment success will be much higher. ”
Employment Accessibility (Illustrator Link)
Guangdong Huiling Foundation for the Support of The Mentally Handicapped is a public welfare partner of the One Foundation Ocean Paradise Program for many years. One Foundation works with Hui Ling and more partners to support people with autism and families to help them enjoy a dignified, barrier-free and quality social life.
On April 2, 2022, World Autism Awareness Day, the One Foundation Ocean Paradise Project launched the "One Fund Blue Action - Large-scale Advocacy Campaign for Autistic Groups" for the 11th consecutive year, hoping that everyone who has a love for you, together with autistic people and parents, will feel this spring happily.