Program Summary, Rebecca Jansson & Sharon Breiner, Mainstay, “Opportunities for Individuals with Disabilities,” March 31, 2022

Rebecca Jansson

Since 1985, Mainstay has been a self-sustaining department of the Seattle Central College. Serving thousands of job seekers with disabilities, Mainstay prides itself on high quality service, strong communication and a focus on social justice and equity. Mainstay goes above and beyond to ensure job seekers are prepared and ready for the world of work. Let us know if we can be of assistance to you, as a job seeker, employer, family member or advocate.

In 2014, Mainstay launched SAILS – Supported Academics and Independent Life Skills to support students with disabilities at Seattle Central. With academic tutoring, time management, executive functioning and communication with faculty, SAILS enhances the entire post-secondary experience. We help students reach their academic goals!

Rebecca Jansson is the Director of Mainstay and SAILS at Seattle Central College. Mainstay provides job seekers with disabilities opportunities to work in private and public sector careers of their dreams. SAILS is Supported Academics and Independent Life Skills, which mentors students with learning differences to reach success at Seattle Central. SAILS’ team provide supports such as executive functioning, academic tutoring and academic resource coordination.

In her 25th year at Seattle Central, Rebecca finds joy in helping people with disabilities have the opportunity to contribute to their community of choice, build relationships, have a sense of competence and feel included. Mainstay assists individuals who often are unable to access the competitive workplace through a pathway of education through college. In 2014, SAILS launched when the demand for access to college began to grow for more and more populations including those with Intellectual Disabilities and neuro-diversities such as Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Rebecca enjoys the client service piece of being the Director, but also, she finds fundraising, accreditation process and policy fun! As part of the Community Employment Alliance, Rebecca works to make a bigger impact in our supported employment systems through advocacy and legislative involvement.

Rebecca started her career focused on assisting individuals who are Deaf and Hard and Hearing navigate employment as a Certified Rehabilitation Counselor. She has served other non-profits such as Abused Deaf Women Advocacy Service and Hearing Speech and Deafness Center.

Rebecca lives with her husband Roger, two children Elliott and Dahlia and her Chocolate Lab Nutella. She is officially the holder of jackets and supplies every weekend for the family at soccer games or skiing weekends.

Sharon Breiner

Sharon Breiner has almost 20 years of Human Resources and Recruiting experience across a variety of industries including financial services, consumer products and professional services.  Sharon is passionate about finding the right match for both the person and employer to ensure a mutual benefiting relationship. 

Prior to joining Mainstay in 2019, Sharon was a Recruiting Business Partner at Amazon where she successfully partnered with hiring managers to strategically attract the best talent to fill positions.

After a brief work sabbatical to stay home with her young kids, Sharon wanted to take her corporate experience to work as a Job Coach for people with disabilities.  Since joining Mainstay 2 years ago, Sharon assists clients to land their dream jobs as well as coaches clients in their jobs.

Sharon is an alumnus of Michigan State University (Go State!).  Having moved from Boston 11 years ago she calls Seattle home.  She lives in Queen Anne with her husband, daughter and son. Once an avid marathoner, these days she can be found trying to keep up with her kids skiing and cheering from the sidelines of soccer games.    

Program notes from Hal Beals:

Rebecca Jannson and Sharon Breiner of Seattle Central College joined us on March 31 by Zoom to present a unique program – Mainstay & Sail a program that connects job seekers  with disabilities to employers in the area with academic counseling. Sixty two percent of students with intellectual disabilities will never work if they don’t have a job by age 21. The goal of Mainstay & Sail is to reduce this number.

Started by the college in 1985 as a pilot program to train individuals with Intellectual/Developmental Disabilities as dishwashers, a necessary job with many openings.  Today, Mainstay works with many employers in the private and public sectors in many job classifications including Walgreens, Safeway, Starbucks, McDonalds and Microsoft.  Clients and employers are in regular contact with Job Coaches who are on  the spot to resolve issues with clients, managers and co-workers. The average client of Mainstay has been on the job for 15 years.

The second part f the  program – Sails was started in 2014 to work with students at Seattle Central College on the autism spectrum having difficulty completing their academic programs. Sails provides support with time management, executive functioning and staff-faculty communication to help students be successful in the classroom.

An important part of the Mainstay & Sail program is exposing students to the job interview process, which can be difficult and stressful.  Rotarians have the opportunity to participate in mock job interviews as potential employers on April 20 and 21. Advance training and interview questions will be provided my Mainstay and Sail.  

Contact Ed Bronsdon if you want to participate.