A RAISE Center Resource Collection
Funding of Assistive Technology Series — Work, Assistive Technology and
State Vocational Rehabilitation Agencies
A Partner Resource | This piece from NDRN’s Senior Staff Attorney, Ron Hager, outlines the Vocational Rehabilitation Agency’s obligation to fund AT to support employment preparation.
Preparing Transition-Age Youth with Disabilities for Work: What School Leaders Need to Know About the New Legal Landscape
A Partner Resource | This Institute for Educational Leadership (IEL) policy brief informs school leaders about their responsibility to provide students with disabilities effective secondary school transition programs that prepare them for competitive integrated employment.
ODEP’s #ApprenticeshipWorks Video Series Wins MarCom Gold Award
This video series features apprentices with and without disabilities (Recruits) and their apprenticeship sponsors (Sponsors) in high-growth industries like information technology, healthcare, and marine engineering.
Getting and Keeping the First Job
Competitive employment is the cornerstone of a successful transition to adult living for youth with disabilities. In this workshop, co-presented by Transition Specialists from PACER and Vocational Rehabilitation Services (VRS), youth and parents will learn about preparing for and keeping a job.
Vocational Rehabilitation (VR): A Young Adults Guide
The information in this guide explains how young adults with serious mental health conditions can take advantage of the VR services in their state.
Talking about Disability Disclosure
This blog post from the Job Accommodation Network discusses reasons why you may need to disclose your disability to a potential employer and how doing so may help you succeed in the workplace.
LEAD Center Information Brief: Improving Employment Outcomes with ABLE Accounts
This policy brief, The ABLE Act and Employment: Strategies for Maximizing the Effectiveness of the Achieving a Better Life Experience (ABLE) Act as a Tool for Financial Stability and Employment Outcomes for People with Disabilities, aims to he;p individuals with disabilities, their families, government agencies, and all other ABLE stakeholders understand how having an ABLE account can help account owners gain employment and improve their overall financial stability.
Policy Brief: Preparing Transition-Age Youth with Disabilities for Work
A Partner Resource | This policy brief from Institute for Educational Leadership (IEL) — Preparing Transition-Age Youth with Disabilities for Work: What School Leaders Need to Know About the New Legal Landscape — aims to inform school leaders about their responsibility to provide students with disabilities effective secondary school transition programs that prepare them for competitive integrated employment. Includes technical assistance guidance developed by the U.S. Department of Justice under the Obama Administration that was withdrawn in late December 2017. While the guidance was withdrawn, the body of case law still stands. In English and Spanish.
Teaching Soft Skills Through Workplace Simulations in Classroom Settings
Discusses three common methods for creating opportunities for experiential learning of soft skills.
Introducing Vocational Rehabilitation Services: Simply Said
This short Simply Said video teaches individuals how their local Vocational Rehabilitation Services (VRS) counselor can help them be successful at school, at work, and in the community.
Employment Page from PACER
Provides 8 informative videos featuring individuals’ personal stories in addition to professionals’ advice and information on a variety of topics including Employment Supports, VR Services, Disability Disclosure, and more.
By Youth, For Youth: Employment
By Youth, for Youth: Employment was written by youth for youth who want to know more about finding and keeping the right job. This brief covers each of these topics and provides information on supports such as vocational rehabilitation and transportation.
LEAD Center Information Brief: Improving Employment Outcomes with ABLE Accounts
The purpose of this brief is to help people with disabilities, their families, government agencies and departments, and all other ABLE stakeholders to understand how having an ABLE account can help account owners gain employment and improve their overall financial stability.
Promoting Employment and Economic Advancement: A Toolkit for CILs and AJCs
This collection of resources is for Centers for Independent Living (CIL) and American Job Centers (AJC) to deepen their understanding of each other’s services and structure to improve the lives of job seekers with disabilities through employment.
Get the Job … Keep the Job! (video, 26 minutes)
This open-captioned youth work readiness video from the RCIL (Regional Center for Independent Living) Departments of Youth Leadership and Employment was made by youth with disabilities for youth with and without disabilities. It provides an overview of the right and wrong ways to apply for a job and give an interview; as well as how to request reasonable accommodations, and how to KEEP your job.
What is the Ticket to Work Program
This 5 minute video introduction to the Ticket to Work program is also available in ASL.
Welcome to the Path To Work – Paths 1, 2, 3 and 4
The Path to Work is geared toward individuals who are considering working, ready to find a service provider to help them, looking for a job, or already working and want to keep on the road to financial independence.
Ticket To Work Interactive Website/Directory
Ticket to Work service providers offer free job support, including job coaching, job counseling, training, benefits counseling and job placement. The tools on this page can help Social Security disability beneficiaries (persons who receive SSI or SSDI) age 18 through 64 who want to work find service providers to help them find employment support.
Customized Employment: Applying Practical Solutions for Employment Success
The second volume in a series of Customized Employment portfolios expands on the topics of the first volume and provides ideas on how to use these strategies with job seekers for their own Customized Employment success.
Work Early, Work Often: Parents/Caregivers of Young Adults with Disabilities
Part of a video series created by the Youth Transitions Collaborative that highlights the importance of work and work-based experiences in an individual’s transition to adulthood, particularly for young adults with disabilities. In this video, watch a powerful story unfold as a mother describes “letting go” when her son entered the world of work. (Visit https://thenytc.org to learn more.)
Essential Skills to Getting a Job: What Young People with Disabilities Need to Know
This in-depth survey of 461 business leaders finds that younger workers frequently lack “soft” skills, which include: professionalism or work ethic, oral and written communication, teamwork and collaboration skills, and critical thinking or problem-solving skills.
Helping Youth Develop Soft Skills for Job Success: Tips for Parents & Families
This InfoBrief discusses the importance of soft skills and offers specific strategies parents and families can use to help their child develop skills for employment success, including communication skills, interpersonal skills, decision-making skills, and lifelong learning skills.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS: Using Customized Employment’s Discovery and Group Discovery Models to Promote Job Seeker Success in American Job Centers
Discusses how Customized Employment’s signature strategy, Discovery, offers an approach for job seekers with barriers to employment that is consistent with some of the most widely accepted strategies for successful career development.
Self-Employment and Microenterprise: A Customized Employment Option
Developed for the Office of Disability & Employment Policy, U.S. Dept. of Labor, and the Institute for Community Inclusion/National Center on Workforce & Disability, describes “Customized Employment” for individuals with disabilities that involves matching a person’s dreams and talents to economic activity and designing support strategies that promote a successful tenure.
Preparing Transition-Age Youth with Disabilities for Work: What School Leaders Need to Know About the New Legal Landscape
A RAISE Partner Resource | This policy brief from IEL aims to inform school leaders about their responsibility to provide students with disabilities effective secondary school transition programs that prepare them for competitive integrated employment. Also available in Spanish.
Executive Function Skills at Work: How Technology Can Help
This brief information sheet explores some of the executive function skills that impact job tasks and how technology can help parents and individuals learn about tools and strategies for time management, completing tasks, and organizing.
Getting Started: Executive Function Skills at Work
This step-by-step guide provides an overview of tools and strategies for executive function skills used in the work place. Youth can read about time management, motivation, following directions, organizing work space and information, remembering appointments and tasks, and focus and attention.
OSERS Publishes FAQs on the Definition of “Competitive Integrated Employment”
This Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA) page provides a series of answers to questions on Competitive Integrated Employment.
Pre-employment Transition Services
This web page from Workforce Innovation Technical Assistance Center focuses on The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) amendment of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 that requires vocational rehabilitation (VR) agencies to set aside at least 15% of their federal funds to provide “pre-employment transition services” to “Students with Disabilities who are eligible or potentially eligible for VR services.” The page is comprised of several sections on pre-employment transition services, including information on promising practices; a literature review; training links; laws, regulations, and policy; FAQs, and more.
Handheld Technology Supports and Transition to Employment
Focused on young adults with disabilities who might have difficulty with learning job responsibilities and expectations. This webinar from Center on Technology and Disability discusses how smartphones can be used to support work skills and teaches techniques on how handheld technology can help when navigating the transition to employment.
JAN Workplace Accommodation Toolkit
JAN’s free online workplace accommodation toolkit provides employers with the tools needed to create a more disability-inclusive and compliant workplace. The tools are aimed at three groups: recruiters, hiring managers, and supervisors; reasonable accommodation subject matter experts/consultants; and employees and co-workers.
#ApprenticeshipWorks Video Series
This video series features apprentices with and without disabilities (Recruits) and their apprenticeship sponsors (Sponsors) in high-growth industries like information technology, healthcare, and marine engineering. These apprentices and their sponsors show how #ApprenticeshipWorks for them and how it can work for other job seekers and businesses across the country.
Improving Transition Outcomes of Youth with Disabilities by Increasing Access to Apprenticeship Opportunities
This paper from the Office of Disability Employment Policy “provides an overview of the apprenticeship system in the US, explores current trends in apprenticeship, examines opportunities specifically for youth, particularly youth with disabilities. In addition it identifies obstacles to expanding participation of youth with disabilities and provides strategies for addressing these obstacles.”
Careers in the Arts Toolkit Dialogue
This Toolkit Dialogue seeks to identify the resources that would prove most effective for people with disabilities pursuing education, training, and employment opportunities across all arts and culture disciplines, not only as artists but cultural workers as well.
A Transition to Postsecondary Education and Employment for Students and Youth with Disabilities
OSERS presents this transition guide to help students approaching the time to leave high school to prepare for adult life, focusing on early transition planning and active participation in decision making.
Handheld Technology Supports and Transition to Employment
Focused on young adults with disabilities who might have difficulty with learning job responsibilities and expectations. This webinar from Center on Technology and Disability discusses how smartphones can be used to support work skills and teaches techniques on how handheld technology can help when navigating the transition to employment.
The Work Site (Ticket to Work)
The Ticket to Work program is a free and voluntary program that can help Social Security beneficiaries go to work, get a good job that may lead to a career, and become financially independent, all while they keep their Medicare or Medicaid.