February 2013

Southeast TACE Logo 

TACE Talks Transition 
Monthly Transition Information from the Southeast TACE

TACE Training Archives

 

2010, 2011 and 2012 TACE webinar recordings, handouts and PowerPoint slideshows are archived and available for you to access at your convenience.
TACE Learning Community
 

The Asset Development Exchange (ADX) is designed to improve employment outcomes and retention through financial stability. Asset building strategies and information can sometimes make the difference between an unsuccessful closure and a successful employment outcome. SE TACE wants to ensure counselors have the information and resources they need to assist their clients in obtaining financial stability.

 

TACE's Job Development Exchange (JDX) provides vocational rehabilitation professionals with the information and tools they need to successfully engage employers and address a wide range of barriers to employment.

Upcoming Training Events

Customized Employment

March 4-April 1, 2013

Cost: $125

This course will take a closer look at customized employment and how it can facilitate employment outcomes for individuals with disabilities.

 

Job Coaching and Workplace Supports

March 7-20, 2013

Cost: $159

This two-week course will cover effective job design, instructional and behavioral support strategies, and the development of natural and co-worker supports.

 

Transitioning with Technology: Using Handheld Technology Moving from School to Work and Community

March 11, 2013

3:00-4:00 PM ET

Learn what handheld devices and apps are being utilized to assist students as they successfully move from school to work and community. Emphasis will be on built-in features, and generic and specialized apps which promote independence, communication, productivity, and inclusion.

 

Ready by 21 National Meeting

March 11-13, 2013

Atlanta, GA

The Forum for Youth Investment is hosting a three-day meeting dedicated to improving the odds for children and youth. The goal is to get all young people ready by 21 for college, work, and life. Leaders in the field will share how they have (a) adopted standards for creating effective change, (b) implemented solutions to achieve goals, and (c) measured success.

 

Into Adulthood: Transition to Work for Individuals with Autism

March 18-April 29, 2013

Cost: $300.05

This course will provide the participant with an in-depth understanding of the concepts related to positive transition planning for youth with autism.

 

RSA's Assistive Technology Programs and State Vocational Rehabilitation Agencies - Working Together for Success

March 21st, 2013

2:00-3:00 PM ET

This webinar will demonstrate how the Assistive Technology programs offer potential cost savings and enhanced services for VR agencies/counselors, and people with disabilities.

 

Supported Employment Web-Based Certificate Series

April 1-June 17, 2013

Cost: $325
This ACRE-certified course provides an extensive overview of supported employment and how to facilitate competitive jobs for individuals with significant disabilities.

 

Providing Quality Training

April 10-23, 2013

Cost: $159

The course covers all the basics for good skill instruction. Also, it will feature more advanced information on error correction, data collection, and training strategies for difficult tasks.

 

2013 Disability Policy Seminar

April 15-17, 2013

Washington, D.C.

Two days of informative in-depth sessions from disability policy experts and opportunities to network with others from your state will culminate in a third day starting off with breakfast on Capitol Hill before you personally meet with your elected representatives and their staffs.

 

2013 North Carolina DCDT Transition Conference [PDF]

April 24-26, 2013

Greensboro, NC

North Carolina will hold its 2013 NCDCDT conference focusing on college and career readiness. This year's conference theme is Mission: Not Impossible! Conference topics include transition, job coaching, self-determination and more.

 

Marketing and Job Development: Developing Opportunities for Youth and Adults with Disabilities

May 5-18, 2013

Cost: $159

This 2-week course will cover the key principles and hands-on tools for finding jobs for people with disabilities and other high-unemployment groups.

 

Customized Supported Self-Employment

May 6-July 15, 2013

Cost: $250

This online course is being offered by Virginia Commonwealth University's Rehabilitation Research and Training Center in collaboration with Griffin-Hammis and Associates. 

 

Employment First: Race to Success- Employment Comes in First

June 24-27, 2013

Indianapolis, Indiana

This year's conference will feature strands including State-of-the-Art Practices in Integrated Employment; Transition from School to Adult Life; Public Policy and Funding; Leadership and Personal Development; and Consumer, Family and Self-Advocacy.

 

Be sure to check the TACE Events page

for the most up-to-date training announcements.

Greetings!  

Welcome to the monthly electronic Southeast TACE Talks Transition! For this issue, we've gathered transition-related information from across the country to help you guide the young people you serve successfully into adulthood. 

 

We encourage you to let us know about your creative local practices, transition tips for VR Counselors, and Customized Employment success stories. Send an email to Kim Brown at brown@ruralinstitute.umt.edu and she'll schedule a telephone interview with you to learn more about what you are doing. The information will be written up and shared in a future TACE Talks Transition and on the TACE Transition Services web site.  
  
Asset Development Exchange 30-Second Trainings:

Pooh Bear and Money Pot Cartoon

 

The Southeast TACE wants to help counselors have the information and resources you need to assist your clients in obtaining financial stability. Toward that end, we are producing 30-second trainings and posting them on the Southeast TACE Asset Development Exchange (ADX) webpage. Download this month's PowerPoint, Asset Development: Student Earned Income Exclusion [PowerPoint], and get started today!

Counselor Tips:

On February 12, 2013, the Systems Change Transition Projects Utilizing Direct and Indirect Service webinar was held.  Tara Jordan, RSA Project Officer; Michael Kinney, Rehabilitation Program Specialist for Transition and Postsecondary Services, Ohio Rehabilitation Services Commission; and Clayton Rees, Youth Transition Services Coordinator/Project ACCESS Project Manager, Oregon Vocational Rehabilitation Services, shared information that has been useful in assisting state VR agencies in providing effective transition services. The archived PowerPoint slides, transcript and session recording are now available to download.

 

With income tax season upon us, now is the time to talk with your Vocational Rehabilitation clients about the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). The EITC is a federal income tax credit for low to moderate income working individuals and families. This credit is a great incentive for many of your clients who are struggling to make work pay.

 

The IRS released Where Taxpayers With Disabilities Can Find Online Help from the IRS [Video], a YouTube video that provides information about tax products and other IRS services offered to people with disabilities.

 

The Southeast TACE Asset Development Exchange offers several user-friendly tax resources to assist clients with their taxes.

Transition:

The IDEA Partnership at NASDE's Community of Practice on Transition has a workgroup focused on employment opportunities and career development for youth with disabilities. This workgroup is hosting a series of webinars in partnership with the National Post-School Outcomes Center and NSTTAC. "Get the Picture" was held on Wednesday, February 20th. Presenters shared the current national data and family perspectives regarding employment for youth and young adults. "Get in the Picture" will be held on Wednesday, March 27th from 2:00-3:30 PM ET, and will cover current national work including Employment First legislation and initiatives in states. Finally, "Change the Picture" will be offered on Wednesday, April 24th from 2:00-3:30 PM ET.

 

If you weren't able to attend the 2012 National Transition Conference: College and Careers for Youth with Disabilities, you can now access the online archives! The Institute for Community Inclusion established a website that provides an overview of the conference program, materials provided by presenters and captioned video of both the opening session and the keynote speaker, Ann Wilson Cramer of IBM. Breakout session materials have been organized by theme track.

 

Iowa's State Department of Education website houses a Matrix for Transition Assessment that includes links to assessment methods and tools. The Matrix also provides a framework for gathering necessary transition planning information focusing on a student's interests and preferences, basic skills, attitudes, habits, self-awareness, and critical thinking and application skills.

 

Linking Youth Transition Support Services: Results from Two Demonstration Projects presents an overview of two projects in the Social Security Administration's Youth Transition Demonstration: California's Bridges to Youth Self-Sufficiency and Mississippi's Model Youth Transition Innovation. Key outcomes are reported and the successful experiences of one youth in each project are highlighted.

 

NCWD/Youth recently released their updated Individualized Learning Plan guide, Promoting Quality Individualized Learning Plans: A How-to Guide Focused on the High School Years. This tool is designed for educators and other professionals who assist youth with college and career readiness and transition planning.

 

Work-Based Learning Opportunities for High School Students [PDF] describes the Year 5 work of the National Research Center for Career and Technical Education's Technical Assistance Academy. Recommendations based on the findings from the project include:

  • Provide a clear purpose for work-based learning, emphasizing the learning component
  • Offer resources and information about components of high-quality programs
  • Provide professional development for teachers and coordinators to develop instructional strategies
  • Convene meetings with employer associations and labor unions to achieve buy-in
  • Provide resources and guidelines for employer mentor selection, training, and continued engagement
  • Support teachers to work closely with coordinators and employer mentors to develop detailed student training plans
  • Connect work-based learning to classroom learning
  • Provide better guidelines for accountability for student learning
  • Adequately fund coordinators
  • Market work-based learning programs
  • Ensure careful consideration of legal issues
  • Use consistent definitions and terminology
  • Examine ways to leverage various funding sources
Announcements: 

March is Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month - what will you do to raise awareness in your community, state and region?

 

The U.S. Department of Education seeks input on Promoting Readiness of Minors in Supplemental Security Income (PROMISE). This initiative was created to foster improved outcomes for children ages 14-16 who receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI) by supporting enhanced coordination between various services, such as those available through Vocational Rehabilitation, Medicaid, Job Corps, and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). Through PROMISE, a small number of competitive, multi-year grants will be awarded to states. The deadline for comment is March 17, 2013.

 

The Office of Personnel Management issued a final regulation eliminating the "certification of job readiness" requirement for the appointment of people with intellectual disability, severe physical disabilities, and psychiatric disabilities to federal agencies.

 

The HSC Foundation, in partnership with the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD), is now accepting applications for a paid fellowship position [PDF] with the organizations' disability youth transition and collaboration work. This fellowship is ideal for a person with a disability who has an interest in youth career transitions and employment solutions. The fellowship starts June 2013, and continues for 12 months. Under the supervision of AAPD's Programs' Manager, the Youth Transitions Fellow will gain exposure to youth programs serving people with disabilities and will have the opportunity to facilitate collaboration among internship, fellowship, and apprenticeship programs based in the greater Washington, DC area. Applications must be received by 5:00 PM EST on March 22, 2013.

Employment: 

The U.S. Department of Labor released the Employer Resource Guide for Hiring and Retaining Persons with Disabilities. The guide provides relevant federal, state and local level information around employers' legal obligations, along with resources that can assist in identifying, paying for, and implementing effective accommodation strategies.

 

Leveling the Playing Field: Attracting, Engaging, and Advancing People with Disabilities examines the business case for employing people with disabilities and details the steps companies can take to encourage the hiring and engagement of employees with disabilities. The Executive Summary addresses a number of myths and misconceptions that can make it difficult for organizations to hire and support people with disabilities.

 

National News: 

On February 26th, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee held a hearing on "State Leadership and Innovation in Disability Employment." The testimony from witnesses Gov. Jack Markell, D-DE; Jane Boone, consultant, Washington State Employment Leadership Network, Seattle, WA; Mike O'Brien, executive director, Oklahoma Department of Rehabilitation Services, Oklahoma City; and Don Uchida, executive director, Utah State Office of Rehabilitation, Salt Lake City, can be accessed on the Committee's web site.

 

The Achieving a Better Life Experience Act of 2013 (ABLE Act; S. 313, H.R. 647) was introduced by Senators Robert Casey, Jr., (D-PA) and Richard Burr (R-NC) in the Senate, and Representatives Ander Crenshaw (R-FL), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), and Pete Sessions (R-TX) in the House of Representatives. The Act would create ABLE savings accounts to allow people with disabilities to save for expenses such as education, community-based supports, housing, assistive technology and transportation. These accounts would be disregarded when determining eligibility for Medicaid, SSI, and other means-tested programs.

 

Funding Health-Related VR Services: The Potential Impact of the Affordable Care Act on the Use of Private Health Insurance and Medicaid to Pay for Health-Related VR Services analyzes the potential impact of the Affordable Care Act on the payment for certain health-related VR services, including physical and mental restoration services, assistive technology devices and services, and personal assistance services.

 

TEAM Act Reintroduced:

U.S. Rep. Gregg Harper (R-Miss.) reintroduced the Transition toward Excellence, Achievement and Mobility (TEAM Act), three bills designed to promoting meaningful post-secondary educational and employment opportunities for young adults with intellectual disabilities. The legislation is intended to:

  • streamline federal programs and services that support youth with significant disabilities from youth to adulthood, and
  • rebalance funding to focus on improved outcomes in post-secondary education and integrated employment.

These three bills (known separately as the TEAM-Education Act, the TEAM-Empowerment Act, and the TEAM-Employment Act) all collectively seek to promote meaningful post-secondary educational and employment opportunities, with an emphasis on the eventual outcome leading to sustained, full-time employment in an integrated setting at a livable wage, long-term career development and growth, and inclusion in the community setting through independent living and social engagement.

 

The TEAM-Education Act would ensure that schools are provided additional resources to hire transition coordinators to proactively support our kids during their transition years in the public school system. The TEAM-Empowerment Act also creates an adult transition planning process and system of transition supports for youth and their families under the auspices of the state intellectual and developmental disability agencies to ensure that our youth can choose a broker to work with them as they seek to use their public supports to secure a desired post-secondary educational opportunity or employment at a livable wage in an integrated setting. The TEAM-Employment Act seeks to stimulate a national system-change initiative, which will ensure that agencies coordinate services better to produce the desired outcomes of integrated living and employment. This includes incentivizing and rewarding those states who reshape the focus of their current funding streams to promote those services that lead to getting our youngsters fully participating in the community through the general workforce and economic mainstream.

 

Post-Secondary Education:

The National Federation of the Blind is offering thirty national scholarships worth from $3,000 to $12,000 to blind college students in the United States and Puerto Rico. Applications are due March 31, 2013.

 

Colleges Realign Programs to Meet Employers' Needs describes some of the ways in which two-year colleges are better aligning educational programs with the local labor market, strengthening student advising services, and creating flexible programs to help students successfully and rapidly enter the labor market.

 

Policy Research Brief: A Taxonomy for Postsecondary Education Programs for Students with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities [PDF] from the Research and Training Center on Community Living presents the current state of the Taxonomy for Postsecondary Education Programs for Students with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, along with examples of how it can be used. The taxonomy is intended to provide a basis for comparing the features of postsecondary education programs designed to serve students with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and to lay the groundwork for further study and comparison of their outcomes.

 

Identifying Effective Components of a Collaborative Career Planning Model for Individuals with ASD in Postsecondary Education [PDF], a Research to Practice Brief from the Autism Disability Rehabilitation Research Project, highlights some of the results from structured interviews with col­lege students on the autism spectrum. For example, when asked what career-related activities they thought would be most beneficial, informational interviews and career exploration were most often selected, followed by internships and work experience. Disclosure plans to use with employers and mentoring in their chosen career area were also identified as important.

 

Survey Data Recap: College Students with Disabilities [PDF], Virginia Commonwealth University's Project Empowerment latest topic sheet, presents a study that explores the issues that are known to negatively affect all college students in order to examine how these issues also affect college students with disabilities. 

 

Technology:

The Virginia Commonwealth University-Autism Center for Excellence recently posted Autism Q&A: Introduction to Alternative and Augmentative Communication (AAC). This fact sheet introduces AAC devices for individuals with autism spectrum disorder and offers guidance on how to choose and teach the use of the devices.

 

The U.S. Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration has optimized some of its most popular online job search and training tools for smart phone and tablet use.

 

On February 1st, the American Foundation for the Blind launched the AccessNote, a specialized notetaker for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. This is the first note taking app designed for users with vision loss.

 

The January 2013 Job Accommodation Network E-News includes an article discussing the use of accessibility features of mobiles devices as reasonable accommodations for sensory, motor and cognitive impairments.

Websites:

The OSERS Transition Steering Committee launched a new webpage for the Year of College and Career for Youth with Disabilities Initiative. The page features news and resources for young people with disabilities, their families, educators and employment professionals.

 

The Center on Knowledge Translation for Disability and Rehabilitation Research (KTDRR) launched its new website. According to the website, the purpose of KTDRR is "to make it easier to find, understand, and use the results of research that can make a positive impact on the lives of people with disabilities."

 

The Virginia Department of Education website houses a number of transition resources, including fact sheets, webinars and guides.

 

The We Connect Now website was created in 2008 to connect college students with disabilities as a virtual community with a voice on important issues, especially access to higher education and employment.  

 

Have you accessed your Portal today?

Visit the TACE Transition Services web site. In the "Login For" section on the left-hand side of your screen, select "Counselor" or "Coordinator." This will take you to the "Login to MyTACE Account" page. You will use your MyTACE Account to register for available events, seek applicable credit, and access your specialized portal - Transition Services Counselor or Coordinator. 

 

Attended a TACE Webinar? You may already have created a MyTACE Account. If you have a MyTACE Account, email tacesoutheast@law.syr.edu and request to join the TACE Transition Network. If you don't already have a MyTACE account, follow the instructions to "Create a New MyTACE Account" and also apply for Portal access.

Please forward this TACE Talks Transition to others. Invite them to subscribe by joining the Southeast TACE Transition Listserv. To join the listserv, they simply visit the Southeast TACE Transition Services web site and follow the Transition E-Mail-List link . We'll take it from there!  
 
If you have any questions about TACE or would like to request technical assistance, please contact Civa Shumpert at norciva@gmail.com.

For questions about the Southeast TACE Transition Listserv or the monthly Southeast TACE Talks Transition, please contact Kim Brown at brown@ruralinstitute.umt.edu

Sincerely,
The Southeast TACE Transition Team
Meet the Southeast TACE Transition Team
 
Chip Kenney, Project Director & Principal Investigator
Jill Houghton, Deputy Director
Norciva (Civa) Shumpert, TACE Transition Consultant
About the Southeast TACE Talks Transition:
This free service is being sponsored by Southeast TACE, the Technical Assistance & Continuing Education (TACE) Center for Region IV. TACE is a partnership of academic, governmental, and community expertise that provides technical assistance and continuing education activities to meet the training and organizational development needs of State Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) agencies and their partners in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Southeast TACE supports VR, Community Rehabilitation Programs, Centers for Independent Living, Client Assistance Programs, and other agencies to enhance employment outcomes, independent functioning, independent living and quality of life for persons with disabilities throughout the eight states in the Southeast Region IV.
To unsubscribe to the Southeast TACE Transition Listserv, use the SafeUnsubscribe link at the bottom of this message or send an email with "unsubscribe transition" in the "Subject" line to brown@ruralinstitute.umt.edu. Please do not flag the messages as spam - this may prevent delivery of the web blasts to other people using your Internet provider who wish to continue receiving the TACE Talks Transition.