Job Satisfaction

How Anthony at Your Service is delivering better work to people living with intellectual disabilities.

- Tim Querengesser

IN THE SUMMER of 2010, Deborah Barrett and her son, Anthony, walked out of a restaurant near the Edmonton high school from which he’d graduated two years earlier. They had volunteered to wash dishes there to give Anthony something to do, but when they emerged, soaked, the sun sliced through the clouds and Deborah had a realization: my kid is not spending his life in a dish pit.

Cleaning plates isn’t the only option for the bulk of high-school graduates. But Anthony has autism and is mostly non-verbal, aside from short words in answer to yes-or-no questions and the Eeeee sounds he makes when he’s excited, happy or frustrated. Once a person with intellectual disabilities ages out of school, “There’s no life for them,” Deborah says. Programs end, and job options are usually menial.

As her son entered his 20s, Deborah contemplated what he could do and what he enjoyed. Among his likes: being driven around and carrying things, as well as seeing new places but not staying long. Maybe he could be a courier? The catch: Anthony doesn’t move fast, and courier gigs would require his support staff to be his driver and co-worker.