Introducing Aspire's new Career Academy

Join us as we unveil the new Aspire Career Academy on May 20!

Being the first-of-its-kind in Illinois, the Aspire Career Academy will represent a giant step toward furthering our vision of a community where people of all abilities can live, learn and grow together.This is a transformational moment for Aspire and will change the employment landscape for people with developmental disabilities.  

Across Illinois, there is a wave of young people with disabilities, like autism and Down syndrome, graduating from high schools and looking to work in the community. At the same time, a growing number of companies are pursuing hiring candidates with disabilities. These companies are accessing this previously untapped labor resource because they recognize that many people with disabilities make excellent employees. 

The Aspire Career Academy will be a new source of well-qualified job candidates trained in the exact job skills that are required for their positions. The Career Academy will offer job training in key industries that can most benefit from this labor force: food service/culinary, hospitality/healthcare, office skills/IT, retail, and warehousing/supply chain.

Whether we are training a young man with Down syndrome for a hospitality career or assisting a young woman with autism as she begins a career in the culinary industry, we are creating new possibilities together!