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
j. 3. Include an assessment of the needs of individuals with disabilities for transition career services and pre-employment transition services, and the extent to which such services are coordinated with transition services provided under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
Current Narrative:
As a part of the CSNA activities completed in 2020, NJCBVI distributed surveys to all families of high school students being served by NJCBVI, as well as solicited for involvement in transition-specific focus groups by students and parents. NJCBVI had hoped to use these data sources to do additional analyses of focus group and survey responses to identify needs specific to students and youth with disabilities. Despite outreach efforts, the agency was unable to get sufficient responses from this population to draw any conclusions. CBVI has struggled to engage parents in both opportunities to provide feedback, as well as in sessions geared towards parent education and involvement. Parent engagement continues to be an identified need, and CBVI will continue to conduct assessment activities to reach out to parents and students in order to gather feedback on unmet needs.
CBVI, since its inception, has assisted school districts in providing education programs that address the unique needs of children with vision impairments, blindness, and deaf-blindness. In 1993, this partnership was formalized with local school districts through provider service agreements. The agreements identify the specific level of services that the Commission will provide for each child in the school district. These services are tiered according to individual student needs and are provided by Commission staff within the Education Service Unit. In 2016, CBVI revised its Blindness Education program delivery to more closely align with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act, focusing specifically on more individually tailoring service delivery to students based on their specific needs, and providing service reports to school districts in greater alignment to the requirements under the IEP. Since CBVI serves as the primary provider of blindness education services in the state through its provider service agreements with local school districts, nearly all students identified with visual impairments in New Jersey are known to the Commission. When students reach the age of fourteen, the Commission’s Teachers for the Blind and Visually Impaired refer all these students to one of the nine transition counselors who work in the Vocational Rehabilitation Unit, i.e., six transition counselors and three Deaf-Blind Specialists.
In 2019, CBVI finalized its Memorandum of Agreement with the NJ Department of Education’s Office of Special Education and the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation Services for the implementation of Pre-ETS and Transition Services.