Disabled youth value work experience

For the first time Sam Morgan has had the opportunity to work in a professional firm. Photo / Ted Baghurst

Samuel Morgan, 18, was born with cerebral palsy. He has a relatively mild form of the disorder that affects body movement and muscle co-ordination — for him, it makes walking quite difficult.

Now in his first year at Auckland Uni, studying for a conjoint degree in engineering and commerce, he has just completed a week-long internship at law firm Buddle Findlay. An articulate and personable young man, Morgan is buzzing about the knowledge and insight he's gained from people across the business.

He is here because of a partnership between Buddle Findlay and The Halberg Foundation to launch a new work experience programme for physically disabled young people. The "Buddle Findlay and Halberg Career Experience" initially arranged paid internships for three members of the Halberg Youth Council — a group of 10 young leaders who give voice to physically disabled young New Zealanders and support Halberg's sport and recreation programmes. Morgan is one of those members, and two others — Thomas Chin in Christchurch and Kiran Dixon in Wellington — have also just completed the career experience.

Shelley McMeeken, chief executive at the Halberg Foundation, says the Youth Council identified the challenges of trying to get work experience while studying. "So we presented the idea to Buddle Findlay and they immediately agreed to assist." To prepare, staff at Buddle Findlay participated in inclusion training with the Halberg Foundation.

The Foundation's "Activity Fund" enabled Morgan to take private swimming lessons as a youngster. "Swimming is great physical therapy because it's resistance training," he says. "I do a lot of work with my legs but I'm also able to use my upper body and it's far less limiting than other forms of exercise can be. I've kept it up, and now I do it recreationally for fitness and a bit of strength."

Morgan says team sports are difficult for someone with a physical disability, "because you want to be able to compete at the same level as everyone else", but he's been able to gain the same benefits of teamwork and sportsmanship through his love of singing in choirs. He's won honours with choir groups but has found the greatest benefit to be the ability to participate on a level equal with others. "Choir is my team sport, because we do very similar things to a team — we practise a lot and enter competitions and I've learned to deal with things like winning and losing."

In Year 11 at Rangitoto College, Morgan took up an offer to do a special course at Outward Bound, organised by the Halberg Foundation for people with mild disabilities. "That was amazing. It taught me a lot and gave me a whole new perspective. It was inspiring to see people push themselves much further than they thought they were capable of."

Afterwards, participants were offered the opportunity to join the Youth Council and Morgan says, "I'd been surrounded by these amazing people on the course and I really wanted to do the best I could in making New Zealand more inclusive for them, so that gave me the push to apply for the Youth Council."

Morgan says many starting jobs tend to involve physical labour such as stacking shelves and moving product. "Even a short amount of experience is really important to get a view on what jobs are like, but that physical limitation makes it a little bit harder to get that experience."

Morgan has worked part time as a barista and in retail, but this is the first opportunity he's had to work in a professional firm. "I've been involved with nearly every part of the business. One of the most interesting things was how lawyers interact with a whole lot of different professionals — it's shown me what that sort of future would look like. And talking to the HR, office services and management teams was cool because with the commerce side of my degree, it was valuable to see how a business is run and how the backbone of a corporate office like this allows the lawyers to do what they do."

Morgan says it will be great to be able to include the experience in his CV and have a referee to use in future job applications.

Gaining far more from the experience than he expected to, he has no doubt that it will be valuable for other young people with disabilities. "The people and the different thought processes I've been exposed to have opened my eyes to a lot more than I ever would have thought of."

He's also appreciated the inclusiveness of the firm in catering for his disability. "Everyone's been so facilitating. For example, they arranged all my meetings to be on the same floor. That mindset and eagerness by the firm to make it as comfortable as possible for me has been amazing, and I think anyone else who gets the opportunity to do this will find it so valuable."