Topic “employee”

By Mika Brzezinski Correspondent NBC News updated 7/2/2007 1:13:18 PM ET ANDERSON, S.C. — For Julia Turner, who was born with Down syndrome, a full-time job might seem out of reach, but not here, at Walgreens’ first-of-its-kind Southeastern distribution center. “I have found what I want, and I’m satisfied,” Turner said as she scanned boxes at the center, which officially opened June 14. The drugstore chain’s plan is to hire an 800-person workforce that is one-third disabled, but it is ahead of that goal, reporting that 42 percent of the 250 people it has hired so far have a physical or cognitive disability. The Anderson facility is the first of what Walgreens’ parent, Walgreen Co. of Deerfield, Ill., envisions as a network of regional distribution centers where disabled employees are mainstreamed into the workforce....

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By CINDY KRISCHER GOODMAN - McClatchy Newspapers ESPN commentator and former tennis star Mary Joe Fernandez remembers the day she learned her son had asthma. "It was like a wake-up call that threw me into action," Fernandez said. She realized she would need to become ultra-organized to keep up travel for her broadcasting job, find the best asthma treatments and manage her son's medical needs. "I came up with an action plan that I leave behind with his school, or baby-sitter, or my parents so when I travel they know what to do." Fernandez just recently started to talk openly about her son's illness, even during a recent tennis clinic for children at the U.S. Open in New York to raise awareness and empower other parents. Despite their fears about job security, more parents of children with chronic illnesses and disabilities are opening up - even at work. What they have going for them is strength in numbers: One in seven children under age 18, or approximately 10.2 million children in the United States, have special health care needs, according to Department of Health a...

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