The Pennsylvania Employment Reform Resource Project

Employment Reform Resource Project Overview from the Pennsylvania Developmental Disabilities Council's Web Blog

Employment Reform Resource  “To advocate for and provide technical assistance/training to support the hiring of qualified people with developmental disabilities in jobs of their choice.” Background The ability to receive compensation for labor is one of the hallmarks of citizenship.  Earning a competitive wage is often critical to becoming a part of a chosen community, but for many individuals with developmental disabilities, living wage employment has been an elusive goal.  Despite well developed best practices, many people with disabilities find themselves unemployed, underemployed or isolated in segregated facilities working for nominal wages. Over the years, the Council has funded projects to address these issues, including the Entrepreneurship projects and the PA Business Leaders Network.  As a result of a June 2008 Round Table with invited experts, the Council will fund one project for the purpose of identifying best practices,  and providing training, technical and other assistance for people with developmental disabilities At a minimum the funded entity must be prepared to support the disability community in the following areas of importance to the Council The transition of segregated work settings to ones based on integrated supports The promotion of increased employment of people with disabilities in those professions known as the “Trades Professions”, and The provision of personal supports in the work place to enable integrated, competitive employment The proposer is free to suggest additional employment-focused areas of their work. Along with this RFP, the Council will issue a separate RFP for a number of small grants to segregated work facilities enabling the people using these services to make planned transitions to more integrated employment settings.  The successful proposer to this RFP will work with these smaller grantees to provide needed technical assistance and support. Required Activities Within the Commonwealth, define the barriers to people with developmental disabilities seeking gainful employment.  Identify needed outcomes (and ways to measure them) regarding the three main activities to be addressed.  Include the impact of changes on the level or type of support, and the ease of incorporating these supports in the work place. Identify needed training and technical assistance for each activity your project will emphasize.  Describe strategies that will be used to increase awareness in the business community and to develop partnerships and collaborative networking. Provide training, technical assistance and resources (in the form of mini-money grants) as appropriate, for interested employers and business community members. In conducting activities 2 and 3, undertake the following tasks which are specific to Council’s particular interests: Identify customized employment supports that a personal care assistant may provide that will enable the person with a disability to successfully complete work assignments.  These supports should not only include assistance with daily living activities as they occur at work (meals, dressing, bathroom, repositioning, etc.), but customized employment such as filing, typing, accessing materials and supplies, etc.  The assistance is to be tailored to the individual’s needs. Educate individuals with developmental disabilities, trades organizations, trades-focused training facilities, and potential employers about opportunities and incentives for employing qualified people with developmental disabilities in trade profession occupations. Provide technical assistance to facilities whose goal is to transition to non-segregated, integrated employment settings including those supported under the separate Council grants described elsewhere in this book. Demonstrate that identified outcomes are achieved.  Develop products or materials that can be replicated in other locations of the state. Expected Outcomes Replicable best practices will be identified that address the Council’s cited concerns. A campaign of promotion/education, training, technical assistance and supports will lead to systems change in the employment community, including, but not limited to, change in the three areas of Council interest outlined in the Background section, above. Concrete indicators of individual and systems change will be collected.

Via of the Lehigh Valley & Griffin-Hammis Associates

“Large systems change is a useful way to think, but transforming action is always  local, customized, unfolding, and emergent.”  Community: The Structure of Belonging.

 

Although nationwide resources and priorities have not realigned to expand employment, there is evidence that some state CRP’s are expanding community employment and outcomes. In 2007, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, and Washington, reported that 40% of individuals were supported in integrated employment.  In 2004, 35% of Pennsylvania residents with developmental disabilities participated in integrated employment services, while dropping to 21% in 2007 (Butterworth, 2008).

 

“The high unemployment rate for people with disabilities is not the result of a flaw in the human service delivery system, it is the system.  In order to change the reality of poverty and isolation endured by people with significant disabilities, changes in our approach to employment services must take top priority.”(Griffin, 2007). 

 

Strategies that characterize high performing states include flexibility in funding, policies, communication of values, data collection and analysis, rewards and funding incentives, and innovation diffusion through relationships and training (Hall, 2007; Institute for Community Inclusion, 2008).

 

Via of the Lehigh Valley and Griffin-Hammis Associates (GHA) propose to introduce an Economic Development Model to Pennsylvania: a customized employment model emphasizing a non-comparative negotiation approach, and leveraging traditional and nontraditional resources to create communities of economic cooperation. This proven training and technical assistance (T/TA) approach is in its very nature a sustainable, capacity building approach.  Training is provided and supported by TA/mentoring of field-based implementation of the strategies learned as organizations develop improved outcomes for jobseekers with DD.  TA is provided to build community resources and relationships to access both existing and new community resources, broaden buy-in, and braid funds.  We leave communities with new capacity and demonstrated changes in policy and practice to support flexible, high quality, customized outcomes.