#IWantToWork
What started as one selfie turned
into life-changing legislation
Advocacy campaign that empowers young adults with disabilities wins 2017 PRSA Renaissance Award.
Situation Analysis/Research
When young adults with disabilities in Pennsylvania turn 21, they’re forced to leave behind the supportive services system they’ve known all their lives. Facing great challenges in this broken system, they frequently ‘graduate to the couch’ or are left with menial, unfulfilling jobs.
The Campaign for What Works and 21 and Able, supported by United Way, partnered to help create awareness of this issue and encourage support for legislation that would develop connections between education agencies and private employers to successfully help high school graduates with disabilities transition to the workforce. The Blender team developed a multi-phase social media advocacy campaign, #IWantToWork, to build support for this important legislation. This campaign gives young adults with disabilities a platform to personally express their desire to work and share their career goals and aspirations. It started with a visual ‘selfie’ campaign.
The #IWantToWork campaign aims to educate legislators, members of the community and businesses throughout Pennsylvania about the importance of equal opportunity employment for people with disabilities. The campaign advocates for legislation to increase funding for employment transition services for young adults with disabilities.
Our key target audience was legislators. Our goal was to create a platform for young adults with disabilities to inspire Pennsylvania state legislators to pass a critical employment law.