Articles
Partnerships
- Employer Engagement in the National Fund for Workforce Solutions [PDF]
- Each regional collaborative in the National Fund for Workforce Solutions invests in local workforce partnerships that organize key stakeholders, mobilize service providers, and secure local resources to help workers to gain the skills they need and employers to access the skilled labor they need. Critical to their success is engaging employers as active partners. This report, based on interviews with the coordinators of workforce partnerships, details how they identify and meet employer needs and what challenges they face in doing so.
- Recruitment and Retention of Older Workers: Application to People with Disabilities
- Summaries interviews of employers in a number of states on strategies they use to hire older workers
- Increasing Placement Through Professional Networking
- Discusses benefits of professional networking groups
Structure
- 32nd IRI: The VR-Business Network: Charting Your Course [PDF]
- This document was developed in collaboration with CSAVR's NET and input from business partners. It provides maturity scales for an agency to chart their progress toward a business engagement model.
- Creating Mentoring Opportunities for Youth with Disabilities: Issues and Suggested Strategies
- For young people with disabilities, mentoring can impact many of the goals that are part of the transition process: succeeding academically, understanding the adult world, developing career awareness, accepting support while taking responsibility, communicating effectively, overcoming barriers, and developing social skills (Rhodes et al., 2000). When mentors are successfully employed, mentoring can provide connections for youth within the world of work, opening possibilities for employment. Thus, mentoring can be a dynamic catalyst for the achievement of transition goals.
- 2011 Report of the AccessSTEM/AccessComputing/DO-IT Longitudinal Transition Study (ALTS)
- The ALTS tracks the progress toward degrees and careers of students with disabilities who had a goal of postsecondary education while in high school and received DO-IT sponsored interventions (e.g., internships, mentoring, college transition activities) in high school and/or in college.
Briefs
Partnerships
- ODEP Employer Engagement Strategy: Workforce Inclusion white paper [PDF]
- White paper by ODEP on strategies for employer engagement
- NCWD Facilitating Employer Engagement among WIB Partners
- Discusses how to engage employers with partners
- Building Lasting Connections to Employers [PDF]
- Talks about community-wide intermediaries
Structure
- Developing a Business Relations Structure: Lessons Learned from VR Trailblazers
- The Job Driven Vocational Rehabilitation Technical Assistance Center (JD-VRTAC) hosted a targeted technical assistance forum on VR business relations structures. At this forum, representatives from six State Vocational Rehabilitation Agencies (the “trailblazers”) presented on panels and facilitated round-table discussions about their agencies’ experiences engaging business as a customer. State VR Agencies (SVRAs) described their business relations structures and functions, how they determined a business relations approach, and the challenges they faced throughout this process. This brief features highlights from this forum.
- Employer Engagement Strategy: Workforce Inclusion. White paper prepared by Social Dynamics, LLC as part of the ODEP Business Case for Hiring People with Disabilities research [PDF]
- Copied from intro: The purpose of this white paper is to describe the evolution of ideas that occurred during the execution of the ODEP Business Case for Hiring People with Disabilities research. Originally designed to update previous ODEP business cases by providing quantitative data supporting the value added by hiring people with disabilities, this focus was ultimately shifted in light of the limited research data available to support a quantitative argument.
- Quality Work-Based Learning and Postschool Employment Success
- Explains the benefits of work-based learning for students with disabilities and related employment success.
HR Development
Behavioral Interviewing: Sample Questions
This resource lists sample beavioral interview questions and personal characteristics ideal for professionals who deliver vocational rehabilitation (VR) or employment provider services.
Strategies for Youth Workforce Programs to become Employer-Friendly
Reviews basic employer friendly strategies to help build connections with employers
Curricula & Learning Guides
Partnerships
- RSA Report : Overview and Discussion of Federal Regulations on Services to Business
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This document authored by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, Rehabilitation Services Administration, gives an overview of federal regulations on services to business.
Local Regional Partnership Self-Assessment Tool [PDF]
August 2006
CLASP seeks to improve the lives of low-income people and engages policy makers in a variety of strategies to achieve this. Engagement of business and public agency partners is one strategy. This document examines roles and actions of state and regional partners in career pathways. The self-assessment process can support the unified planning process across workforce, adult education, and vocational rehabilitation programs required by WIOA.
FACT SHEET: New Regulations on Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973
On September 24, 2013, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) published a Final Rule that makes changes to the regulations implementing Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended (Section 503), at 41 CFR Part 60-741. The new regulations became effective on March 24, 2014.
Searchable Online Accommodation Network
JAN's Searchable Online Accommodation Resource (SOAR) system is designed to let users explore various accommodation options for people with disabilities in work and educational settings.
A Resource Guide to Engaging Employers [PDF]
This resource guide presents working models of successful employer engagement and lessons for securing and sustaining partnerships with employers. It was written to help education and training providers fully realize the value of strategic, long-term, and intensive partnerships with employers. The resource leads readers through a continuum of activities supporting these partnerships, with each level involving deeper engagement and integration of employers into the work: Advising Capacity-building Co-designing Convening Leading The continuum is flexible and adaptable, and suggests how productive relationships with employers might evolve, with activities at one level helping build trust, momentum, and leverage for more intensive activities.
Making Sense (Cents): Having a Disability-Friendly Business
This presentation, developed by Russell Thelin, walks businesses through 25 ways to have a disability-friendly business.
Engaging business to Hire Minors [PPT]
View this presentation by Pennsylvania OVR about the unique circumstances associated with hiring minors and engaging businesses to offer job opportunities to minors.
Structure
This guide is focused on providing young adult-focused workforce development professionals with resources to aid in planning and executing a successful employer engagement activities and related youth employment programming. The goal is to provide tools that can be used in a variety of settings. Tools are arranged in accordance with a five-step process: Assessing your current realities and goals; Preparing young people for the workplace; Finding employers for your program; Building relationships with employers; Managing the ongoing relationships you have built.
http://commcorp.org/resources/documents/Employer
- Beyond Traditional Job Development
- Book on engaging employers in job creation
HR Development
- Work-based Learning Jump Start
- Employers who actively develop and engage in work-based learning opportunities for youth with disabilities see real and concrete benefits. These employers create pipelines of qualified and job-ready employees that help shield them in the unpredictable and ever-changing labor market. They realize a reduction in the time and cost of recruitment, screening, selecting, and training new workers. Important opportunities are created for current employees to hone training and mentoring skills and gain practical understanding of reasonable accommodations in the workplace.
- Beyond Traditional Job Development
- This is a book on engaging employers in job creation
Webinars
Partnerships
- How Does the Dual Customer Approach Support VR Employment Outcomes?
- This webinar provides Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) agencies with an overview of the National Employment Team (NET) and the Talent Acquisition Portal (TAP). Kathleen West-Evans, Director of Business Relations at the Council of State Administrators of Vocational Rehabilitation, will discuss how the NET and TAP are building relationships with businesses that contribute to career planning and VR employment outcomes.
- Skills for Business Engagement: Part 1
- This ExploreVR webinar provides an overview of business engagement competencies outlined in the ExploreVR Business Engagement Toolkit. Presenters discuss three key competencies of VR business engagement: labor market needs, communication strategies, and internal management strategies.
Websites
Partnerships
- Project Search
- Website describing the program.
- South Shore Employment Collaborative
- Website for one of the DDS regional employment collaboratives which has a model of agencies working together to assist employers in meeting their hiring needs
Videos
HR Development
- Denise Bissonnette Youtube videos
- Short, informative, inspirational videos addressing issues and strategies on job development. These are all free and I use them in my trainings all the time. People love them!
Job Descriptions
- Business Account Managers [PDF]
- This document contains samples of job descriptions for Business Account Managers in VR agencies.
- Business Relations Coordinators [PDF]
- This document contains samples of job descriptions for Business Relations Coordinators in VR agencies.
- Employment Specialists [PDF]
- This document contains samples of job descriptions for Employment Specialists in VR agencies.
