1. Let’s Get to Work
A Community Approach to Improving Employment
Outcomes for Youth
Beth Swedeen and Lisa Pugh
CEC, April 2013
San Antonio, TX

2. Learning Objectives
• Use evidence-based and promising practices at the
local and systems level to measure employment
outcomes
• Identify policy and practice challenges and strategies
• Partner with policymakers to make policy change

3. Background
• WI BPDD awarded a Partnerships in Employment grant
focused on policy changes that lead to better
integrated employment outcomes for youth with
significant I/DD

4. Combines what research/data shows are:
• Most significant barriers;
• Strategies and practices that work;
• Policies that act as both facilitators and barriers to
employment.

5. Project framework includes all stakeholders
• School staff
• Service agencies: voc
rehab, long-term care, state
education
• Students
• Families
• Broader community
(including employers)

6. Four project components
• Statewide consortium
• Pilot schools
• On-site coaches
• Policy team

7. Consortium’s Role
• Large: includes representation from all
stakeholders, 60-70 people.
• Provides input on what is and isn’t working, what
directions to pursue; what policies need to change or
improve.
• Includes progress updates from schools and three
state agencies on progress: practice and policy
changes.
• Include youth and family tracks, particularly to build
self-determination.

8. Pilot Schools
• Did a statewide competitive application reviewed by
all six major partners (3 state agencies; 3 ADD
partners)
• Looked for interest/ability to develop a broader
stakeholder group in their school and community
• Had to commit to implement
evidence-based or promising
practices
• Focus local funds on
sustainability

9. Practices:
• Person-centered planning
• School/community mapping of opportunities
• Connection to general education and co-curricular activities
• Summer paid/volunteer community-based jobs
• Early connection to DVR
• Engaging broader community through a Community
Conversation
• School learning circle/
community of practice to
learn from each other

10. Schools Also Developed Their own Creative
Approaches to Engaging with their Communities
Grafton Holmen
http://youtu.be/2ysq3AYANaA http://youtu.be/M0rMo-uaQqI

11. Jobs First! of Manitowoc County

12. Coaches
• On-site supporters/cheerleaders/practitioners who
show school staff how to try new practices
• Provide resources and direct instruction training
• Connect them to other professional
development, training and resources

13. Policy Team
• Members
• What it does

14. Policy Barriers:
Vocational Rehabilitation
• Some youth were receiving
assessments in facilities
• Some provider networks
and staff did not have
extensive experience with
significant disabilities
• Confusion on appropriate
age for youth referral

15. Voc Rehab Policy Solutions
• DVR issued guidance to staff and the public from DVR
leadership on community-based assessments
• DVR proposed extending their On the Job Training
(OJT) program to youth
• Strengthening statewide training to new/existing DVR
staff on how to support individuals with the most
complex disabilities

16. Vocational Rehabilitation: Future Ideas
• 1-pager for families/schools describing
range of voc rehab services and clarifying
age for application
• Discussion on presumptive eligibility with
Long-Term Care eligibility
• Policy guiding schools to encourage early
conversations with VR
• Strengthen assumption that all individuals
will work: Expansion of motivational
interviewing

17. State Education Agency
Policy Questions
• School districts question what
LRE looks like for youth in
transition (ages 18-21)
• Few pre-service transition prep
programs
• Indicator 13 compliance
• Students with significant disabilities
don’t always have access to same
career guidance as peers

18. State Education Policy Wins
• OSEP guidance on LRE in community worksites
• Inclusion of students with disabilities in new state
law requiring Academic Career Plans (ACPs) (or
Individual Learning Plans)
• Guidance in new Indicator 13 electronic planning tool
on how to count facility-based employment
placements

19. State Education Agency: Current Discussions
• Transition
endorsement/certification
• Work with higher education
statewide to increase masters’
training in transition
• Results-driven accountability
system for improving local
special education programs

20. Long-Term Care Policy Challenges
• Lack of competitive employment
focus in long-term care system
• Lack of understanding about the
impact of employment on public
benefits
• Few discussions in children’s long-
term care system with families about
futures planning/employment

21. Long-Term Care Policy Solutions
• Work with children’s long-term
care system to create “culture of
expectations” around employment
for families
• Identified vocational services as
part of children’s long-term care
waiver
• Include increased employment as
part of state’s Medicaid long-term
care sustainability effort.

22. Long-Term Care: Future Possibilities
• Expansion of promising “pay
for performance” pilot in
managed care
• Work with Department of
Health Services and
Governor’s office to increase
work incentives benefits
counseling
• Strengthen managed care
contract language to
incentivize employment

23. Long-Term Care: Future Possibilities
• Work with legislators on
Employment First legislation
• Pursue a pre-voc policy that would
prohibit/limit new entries to
facility-based pre-voc
• Embed benefits counseling info
into statewide long-term care
system parent training

24. Practical Strategies for Engaging Policymakers
• Make a solid case for change: using
data, research to create targeted
asks, personal stories
• Focus on policy issues prominent in your
state(e.g. workforce/employment initiatives)
• Look at what is happening in
the general population
regarding employment
in your state

25. Practical Strategies for Engaging Policymakers
• Put a face and story with the issue: have legislators
meet real youth and their families
• Don’t take “no” for answer: ask someone else

26. Practical Strategies for Engaging Employers
• Outreached directly to largest employer lobbying organization
in the state
• Connected businesses with legislators on the youth
employment issue
• Connected schools to local chambers, business/service clubs
like Rotary, Lions
• Connected with other
State Council employment
initiatives:
Take Your Legislator
to Work

27. Beth Swedeen, WI-BPDD
beth.swedeen@wisconsin.gov
Lisa Pugh, WI AIDD Public Policy Coordinator
lisa.pugh@drwi.org
Let’s Get to Work Project
http://www.letsgettoworkwi.org/