FOUNTAIN VALLEY : Jobs That Lead to Jobs on ‘Outside’

Sheryl Forman says her dream job is to work at Disneyland.

But until that day comes, the 32-year-old woman who has been diagnosed with limited learning ability is employed at California Elwyn, where she does simple tasks such as putting rubber bands on bundles of brochures.

“I love jobs but no one knows,” Forman said recently while working at the Fountain Valley office along with some 230 other people in a big production room where dozens of jobs are being done simultaneously.

To employees such as Forman, who sit at tables doing simple repetitive chores, California Elwyn is a safe place where they can make a living while also preparing themselves to enter the sometimes rougher workplace outside.

“We are basically providing training to prepare them for job placement within the community,” said Dana Dotson, senior administrative assistant at the nonprofit corporation.

But there are many pitfalls to having what the California Elwyn workers refer to as an “outside job.”

Forman left a job at a movie theater because she found she couldn’t take her co-workers’ taunts about being developmentally disabled. So she returned to California Elwyn, where she has worked for a total of six years. Despite being nervous, she looks forward to her next outside job.

California Elwyn has case managers and workstation monitors who gently help workers handle the pressures of a workplace. Employees are taught the importance of arriving on time and being productive throughout the day. They are evaluated for their production rate and attend quarterly reviews. Workers are paid based on their output and can make up to $125 a week, supplementing their Social Security checks.

Many employees are there on referrals from the state Department of Rehabilitation. For 20 years, Elwyn has provided work for people who otherwise might not find jobs because of their limited skills.

“Some people join California Elwyn and only work for a few months before getting a job; others stay for more than a decade,” Dotson said. “We leave it up to them. Not everybody wants to leave and go work someplace else.”

With its unique work force, California Elwyn, which also has an office in Culver City, places competitive bids as it presses to win contracts for its work force. Among the kind of contracts it takes on include working for several major airlines to replace the used ear-sponges on in-flight headsets.

All this is often preparation for the workers, who may move on to “outside jobs” as maintenance workers or servers at fast-food restaurants or stocking shelves at grocery stores.

But others find the California Elwyn environment seductive. Martin Falsenfeld, 33, who lives in Costa Mesa, worked at Cypress College and performed filing chores at a bank before joining Elwyn in 1985.

“Originally, I thought I would be here a couple of months. But I am afraid to say that I am starting to enjoy it,” he said.