Located in:
- Program-Specific Requirements for Vocational Rehabilitation (Blind)
The Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) Services Portion of the Unified or Combined State Plan [13] must include the following descriptions and estimates, as required by section 101(a) of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended by title IV of WIOA:
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[13] Sec. 102(b)(2)(D)(iii) of WIOA
e. Cooperative Agreements with Private Nonprofit Organizations
Describe the manner in which the designated State agency establishes cooperative agreements with private non-profit VR service providers.
Current Narrative:
DSB develops agreements in response to: (1) state and federal laws and regulations, (2) results of needs assessments, (3) suggestions from consumer groups, and (4) recommendations of staff and stakeholders including those in the Workforce Services arena. DSB uses the RSA guideline template to develop cooperative agreements.
DSB has been a long-standing partner with the Arkansas Deaf blindness Project: Children and Youth with Sensory Impairment (CAYSI), formerly known as the Deaf/Blind Consortium. DSB refers participants to CAYSI and serves on its Advisory Committee, which provides training for parents and professionals to foster stronger partnerships among agencies who work with this population. The project maintains a deafblind registry and requests related information from DSB. DSB has worked with the Helen Keller National Center to improve services for those consumers who are deaf-blind and to provide training for DSB staff. DSB operates the Arkansas Information Reading Services (AIRS), which began as a private non-profit organization and is now part of the state agency. The organization’s founders formed Friends of AIRS (FAIRS) to continue its support of the station. DSB leases facilities for AIRS from the PBS, which provides DSB with in—kind services in the form of engineering services and other technology.