October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month! In the President's proclamation,he said that during the month, "we recognize the indispensable contributions people with disabilities make in our economy and recommit to building a country where each of us can realize the full extent of our dreams."
One initiative from the Rehabilitation Services Administration works to help make that possible. Learn the latest about the Disabilities Employment Initiative a project designed to:
Improve coordination and collaboration among employment and training and asset development programs carried out at a state and local level, including the Ticket to Work program.
Build effective community partnerships that leverage public and private resources to better serve individuals with disabilities and improve employment outcomes
Disabilities Employment Initiative: State Vocational Rehabiliation Agency Participation
Presenters:
Carol Dobak, Chief, Vocational Rehabilitation Program Unit, Rehabilitation Services Administration, U.S. Department of Education;
Kimberly Vitelli, Chief, Division of National Programs, Tools, and Technical Assistance, Employment and Training Administration, U.S. Department of Labor;
Randee Chafkin, Senior Program Coordinator for Disability Programs, Division of National Programs, Tools, and Technical Assistance, Employment and Training Administration, U.S. Department of Labor;
Carolanne O'Brien and Dan Madrid, Delaware Co-Project Leads, Disability Employment Initiative; Delaware Division of Vocational Rehabilitation
Joe Ashley, Assistant Commissioner, Virginia Department for Aging and Rehabilitative Services;
Sinclair Hubard, Virginia State Project Lead, Disability Employment Initiative, Virginia Department for Aging and Rehabilitative Services; and
Anil Lewis, Director of Strategic Communications, National Federation of the Blind.
Summary: The Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA) in collaboration with the Department of Labor (DOL), Employment and Training Administration (ETA) is pleased to share information about the Disability Employment Initiative (DEI), which is jointly funded by the U.S. DOL ETA and the Office of Disability and Employment Policy. DOL has funded the DEI since 2010 to improve the education, training, and employment outcomes of youth and adults with disabilities who are unemployed, underemployed, and/or receiving Social Security disability benefits.
The DEI supports extensive partnerships, collaboration, and service coordination across multiple workforce, generic, and disability systems in each state. The state vocational rehabilitation agencies are critical partners to all the DEI projects. This webinar will highlight activities from two high performing DEI projects-Delaware and Virginia-that focus on successful partnerships between the American Job Centers (formerly known as One-Stop Career Centers) and the vocational rehabilitation agencies to leverage resources to better serve persons with disabilities and improve their employment outcomes so that they can become economically self-sufficient.
The webinar session held October 22, 2012 was recorded and along with the PowerPoint slides and transcript are also available from the following website (scroll to the bottom of the page):
https://ncrtm.org/moodle/mod/page/view.php?id=3642
To link directly to the session recording, select the link below.
Addtional Resources:
Disability Employment Initiative Website
National Clearinghouse of Resource Training Materials Website
Comments
Hi Michelle,
Thank you for recommending this wonderful resource. I am adding it to my "must watch" list.
Has anyone seen this yet??
Rochelle Kenyon, SME
I was unable to get the audio.Has any one else tried? I will try to access the webinar using workforce3 web site.
Hi all,
I listened to the webinar. It sounds good. The effort of the grants seem very similar to the efforts used in the welfare to work programs. Systemic approaches to getting people off of SSI/SSDI as well as using partnerships for employment opportunities for those not on disability but who lack appropriate opportunities in the education and workforce arenas.
If anyone is interested in a unique partnership, the Lighthouse of Broward (county) and Canon USA developed a copier that persons with visual and other disabilities can use. The Lighthouse, using Florida's new and improved adults with disabilities vocational course codes http://www.fldoe.org/workforce/dwdframe/addl_cte_frames12.asp ,(s990002) has developed a disabilities employment program. It combines training designed for employers, VR support, HR and case management support. It is designed to "fill in the gaps" that employers and federal contractors have when trying to access trained candidates and the systems that support them. This and other local and state opportunities for serious employment programs are developing in many places. The opportunity to use partnerships and technology to build career pathways for adults with disabilities is unique in this time and place. I would encourage not only the disabilities group but career pathways and CTE groups to include this opportunity in their planning and program designs.
I would like to know how members of our group would use the opportunities that currently exist to advocate for their students? What can we do in our classrooms to make this real and connect our students to those opportunities? Can we use current "labels" to our advantage in a system that could be designed to change or make them irrelevant?