It takes only a quick glance at a website to see the impact of the Job Accommodation Network at West Virginia University, a national technical assistance center that facilitates the employment and retention of workers with disabilities.

In recent years, JAN’s consultants and resources have helped:

• An elementary school teacher with rheumatoid arthritis gain access to a co-teacher who helped her with fine motor skills activities such as helping the children with zippers and buttons and activities that required scissoring.
• A distribution clerk with Down Syndrome who works at a global strategy and technology consulting firm, who was granted a company-appointed mentor to help him learn his daily routine. The mentor wasn’t needed for long and the employee’s career flourished.
• A federal government agency provide a legally blind employee with screen reader software and a Braille note-taker.

Vignettes like these tell only part of JAN’s story but they have helped create a 30-year legacy of service to the nation and the world.

The U.S. Department of Labor will help JAN build on that legacy with $2.5 million in funding, which JAN officials expect to be renewed annually over the next five years for a total of at least $12.5 million.

“We are very proud to have JAN as an important part of WVU,” WVU President Jim Clements said. “JAN helps us to serve our mission of inclusion and it also serves as a wonderful resource that advances this mission on a global scale. I want to congratulate those in the JAN program and thank them for their hard work and dedication to helping others.”

“With this latest reaffirmation of the quality of services we offer here at WVU, we look forward to continue providing expert information and training over the next five years,” JAN co-director Anne Hirsh said Friday at an event celebrating the award at WVU’s Erickson Alumni Center.

JAN became a component of WVU in 1983 due in large part to appropriations for a computer from the late Sen. Robert C. Byrd. Thanks to its early adoption of computer-based data collection, it quickly became a national center. Since its creation, JAN has received nearly $18 million in federal money, including approximately $2.5 million last year, according to D.J. Hendricks, associate director of the International Center for Disability Information in WVU’s College of Human Resources & Education.

Originally housed at HR&E, JAN is still a component of the college but has moved to offices on Spruce Street. Similar to its physical expansion, JAN has been in a constant state of evolution since its inception.

It started at HR&E as a small office of five but has grown to 30 staffers, who handle more than 40,000 inquires a year related to modifying workplace environments for individuals with disabilities and improving the quality of their lives. More important than its physical growth, JAN has broadened the scope of its access to a global scale with a powerful web presence (http://askjan.org/index.html) and expansion into multiple social media platforms. Through the website, JAN links users with resources and information and offers online Q&A sessions with experts on a variety of aspects related to disabilities and employment.

Its work with veterans helped prompt a 2010 visit to Morgantown and WVU by Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Also, JAN has served as a model for similar institutions in Australia, Canada and Japan.

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