The NTAR Leadership Center recently released a number of research products. These include:
The Great Recession and Serving Dislocated Workers with Disabilities
Maria Heidkamp and Dr. William Mabe of the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University have completed a study to determine the extent to which people with disabilities who have lost their jobs are seeking services from the public workforce system. In particular, they sought to learn how large a role One-Stop Career Centers and Vocational Rehabilitation counselors play in the reemployment efforts of job seekers with disabilities.
Among the chief findings:
- Disability Program Navigators report that One-Stop staff are serving greater numbers of older workers and older workers with disabilities.
- One-Stop staff are serving greater numbers of people with hidden disabilities; many of whom are reluctant to disclose their disability.
- One-Stop staff are seeing greater numbers of people with mental and behavioral health problems.
- States have adopted a variety of strategies to determine whether their customers have a disability.
Read the report.
The Importance of Unemployment Insurance Benefits to Disability Employment Efforts
Kevin Hollenbeck, Principal Investigator at the W.E. Upjohn Institute, has undertaken an ambitious study for the NTAR Leadership Center to estimate what portion of a state's long-term unemployed may have a disability. By examining data from programs in which individuals self-report their disability status (such as Workforce Investment Act and vocational rehabilitation), it is possible to identify participants who are also receiving Unemployment Insurance (UI) benefits.
The study of programs in Washington State found that women, young adults, and less-educated people who also had disabilities were underrepresented in terms of receiving unemployment compensation. This lack of income support often makes it more difficult for an individual to obtain job training, find employment, or stay employed long enough to qualify for Unemployment Insurance in the future.
Read the report.
Final Report of the State Leaders Innovation Institute
by Maria Heidkamp and Kathy Krepcio
A primary goal of the NTAR Leadership Center has been to seek ways to build capacity and leadership at the state and local levels in order to encourage change across workforce development and disability-specific systems that results in improved employment opportunities for adults with disabilities. To help achieve this goal, the NTAR Leadership Center conducted a pilot State Leaders Innovation Institute (SLII) from 2008 to 2010. This pilot was designed to see how a select group of states could work together to improve inter-agency coordination on policy, program, and service delivery for people with disabilities with a goal of improving their employment prospects.
For the pilot effort, the NTAR Leadership Center selected three states -- Maryland, Minnesota, and Connecticut -- that were interested in pursuing cross-agency policy changes and developing new practices to foster a more integrated "to work" system for adults with disabilities. The final report documents the pilot effort and discusses key lessons learned from the pilot states such as: the importance of building cross-agency collaboration and partnerships, the continued need for unified federal disability and workforce program alignment, the necessity of better leveraging other funding streams, and the importance of expanding applications of universal design across agency programs and systems.
Read the report.
Using Braided Funding Strategies to Advance Employer Hiring Initiatives that Include People with Disabilities
by Robert Nicholas, Ronnie Kauder, and Kathy Krepcio
Many state and local disability employment services are operated by a number of different public and nonprofit agencies (e.g., the federal/state vocational rehabilitation system, the local school system, the One-Stop Career Center system, and many community-based employment service providers). These organizations often find it necessary to access funds from more than one program, agency, or funding stream. As a result, many program administrators and staff face the challenge of developing effective strategies to braid disability employment funding.
This report profiles four employer-responsive programs in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, and Connecticut that have implemented braided funding strategies to support hiring initiatives with key employer partners. These in-depth summaries demonstrate clear advantages to braided funding strategies, particularly where participating employers are able to deal with a single point of contact for funding and disability employment services.
Read the report.
Using Medicaid Funding to Support the Employment of People with Disabilities: A Federal Framework
State Medicaid agencies fund a multitude of supports and services for individuals with disabilities. As national public policy has recognized and emphasized the ability of individuals with disabilities to work, states have begun to integrate employment supports into the continuum of long-term care in Medicaid. This new NTAR issue brief discusses the federal legislative and regulatory framework for funding employment supports in Medicaid, and highlights examples of state innovations and best practices for using Medicaid to promote positive employment outcomes.
The brief concludes that states have a significant amount of flexibility through both state plan and waiver services when designing Medicaid program services and supports, and when defining who is covered in their programs. State policymakers have a broad range of options available to design initiatives that support disability employment, using Medicaid funds in combination with other federal and state resources.
Read the brief.
