Located in:
- Program-Specific Requirements for Vocational Rehabilitation (Combined or General)
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
p. 2. A. Identify the strategies that contributed to the achievement of the goals
Current Narrative:
Supported Employment Goal: DVR will meet the needs of individuals with the most significant disabilities who need supported employment and will do so through collaboration with partner systems. DVR will carry this goal forward, continuing to collaborate with key partners to ensure individuals with the most significant disabilities have access to necessary supported employment services.
- Strategy: DVR will continue collaborative efforts and working relationships between local DVR offices and mental health centers and between local DVR offices and agencies serving clients with intellectual disabilities.
- Progress: DVR maintains formal agreements with the Department of Health Care Policy & Financing and the Department of Human Services, Office of Behavioral Health that guides collaborative planning and coordination of services across systems. Clear sequencing of services has been established in both systems to ensure support is as seamless as possible for those receiving services. Each agency is represented on the EFAP and actively engages in identifying strategies to further Employment First policies and principles across all systems in Colorado, including developing more capacity to provide evidence-based or promising practice methods of supported employment.
DVR also maintains formal contracts with several community mental health centers, which successfully drive local interactions that support enhanced service delivery and decrease duplicative service delivery.
Local DVR staff and vocational staff from all twenty community center boards have developed collaborative referral and service delivery processes to identify individuals who are appropriate referrals for supported employment services through DVR.
As described elsewhere in the State Plan, DVR is also is partnering with Colorado Medicaid and local Community Centered Boards to expand the IPS model’s utilization to populations outside of individuals with behavioral health disabilities, and are in the second year of piloting the model with individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities, including youth, to support increased successful outcomes for individuals receiving supported employment services.
DVR will continue this strategy and will expand upon collaborative partnerships and agreements between DVR and local providers who serve clients with mental health concerns and intellectual disabilities.
- Strategy: DVR will continue to work actively with education partners to ensure that youth with the most significant disabilities are accessing career, transition and employment services, including supported employment.
- Progress: DVR and CDE continue to support transition best practices within local school districts through the provision of onsite training, technical assistance, and facilitation regarding the provision of transition services to youth and students with disabilities, including those with the most significant disabilities. As DVR implements Customized Employment, school districts are welcome to participate in training to further develop expertise within education and demonstrate how customized employment services might be coordinated beginning when students are still in high school. DVR has added a new Youth & Transition Services Program Manager, who has a particular focus on Employment First, in addition to coordinating pre-ETS. A goal of this position is to improve DVR’s collaboration with education partners to ensure adequate outreach to engage students with the most significant disabilities early and support their interest and ability to pursue CIE upon exit from secondary education.
In 2021, DVR also applied for and received a grant from the Institute for Community Inclusion to provide targeted training and a subsequent Community of Practice to provide DVR staff with the skills needed to serve youth with intellectual disabilities.
- Strategy: DVR seeks to increase the number of individuals receiving supported employment services and to improve competitive integrated employment outcomes for these individuals.
- Progress: DVR partners closely with other state agencies, stakeholders, training entities, and service providers to ensure providers are able to complete training requirements for supported employment providers. Additionally, DVR is implementing training initiatives that have increased the number of providers available to provide Customized Employment services, and DVR has created a Customized Employment Collaborative made up of stakeholders, agencies, and training entities regularly meeting to strategize and continuously support capacity building for quality Customized Employment services in Colorado.
These efforts are intended to support increased provider capacity, leading to improved supported employment outcomes for individuals with the most significant disabilities. DVR will continue this strategy, particularly as Colorado works to implement legislation that eliminates subminimum wage employment over five years to support movement of these individuals from subminimum wage to competitive integrated employment.