My Employment Options (https://www.myemploymentoptions.com/) has helped SSDI and SSI recipients in 47 states return to work. Many of the positions they offer are work-at-home jobs. Benefits are maintained for many months, then only gradually reduced.
Founded by Paula Vieillet, a Certified Vocational Evaluator (CVE) and nationally recognized author, presenter and speaker, My Employment Options (https://www.myemploymentoptions.com/) works with those on disability to find them work—often from home—through the "Ticket to Work "program. The folks getting back to work pay nothing—as in, no fee, whatsoever.
My Employment Options (MEO) finds and focuses on the strengths of each individual (yes, each individual). They then match those individuals with work that taps their strengths. The company has been helping job seekers for over 20 years. But, in the wake of Covid-19, they now can offer a particularly high number of Work at Home jobs throughout the country.
My Employment Options doesn’t pave the road back to work for a few dozen people a year. Last year, for instance, they achieved placements for 440 people with agoraphobia, chronic pain, depression, visual impairment, hearing impairment, or autism spectrum disorder (just to name a few of the many, many conditions that MEO helps its clients power through). That means that 440 people who may have concluded that their emotional or physical impairments would leave them forever without the opportunity to build self-esteem by earning a living, and without the joy of working as part of a team, now know otherwise.
Paula Vieillet is herself the heart and soul of My Employment Options (along with the more than 20 employees at the company). Some of those employees were once clients—that’s right, they initially reached out for help getting back to work and eventually ended up working for My Employment Options. Talk about paying it forward.
"This work speaks to me,” Paula Vieillet said. “There's nothing better than being able to focus, every day, on overcoming challenges with people who deserve to overcome them and who inspire me every day. They think we’re giving them opportunities, but the real opportunity is to see courageous, competent people making their way back to the workplace, achieving wonderful things.”
Lest you think that My Employment Options bids farewell to their clients after a job placement is achieved, think again. They offer support to those clients for up to six years after the placement to help assure success.
What’s more, clients are not required to immediately stop receiving social security disability benefits. SSDI clients get to keep those benefits for the first 9 months back to work and they keep a percentage of their benefits for the next 9 months, as well. And if their disabilities ultimately mean that they can’t stay at work, their benefits resume.
Recently, My Employment Options launched AskMEO.com (https://www.askmeo.com/) to create partnerships with other agencies—such as the Martin Luther King, Sr. Community Resources Collaborative—who can then refer their clients for the specialized services MEO offers.
Veterans are an area of special interest for MEO. Their outreach to help our nation’s heroes includes a connection to Wounded Warriors. And Ms. Vieillet is efforting a closer connection with the Veteran’s Administration itself. The VA would be very wise to make the most of her invitation to collaborate.
At a time when our culture seems to encourage people to do less or be less, My Employment Options is a shining example of helping determined people do more and be more.
