Located in:
- Program-Specific Requirements for State Vocational Rehabilitation (Blind)
The Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) Services Portion of the Unified or Combined State Plan must include the following descriptions and estimates, as required by sections 101(a) and 606 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended by title IV of WIOA.
a. 5. Provide the VR agency’s response to the Council’s input and recommendations, including an explanation for the rejection of any input and recommendations.
List each recommendation/input followed by the VR agency response
Current Narrative:
Agency Response:
The agency is in full agreement with the recommendations made by the SRC, and as noted, the agency has begun to take steps towards process and service provision improvement that align with the SRC recommended goals. Most of the SRC recommendations are reflected in the agency’s strategic goals within this pan.
The Category One set of recommendations relate to improving employment results. The agency has recognized and shared with the SRC that DSB customers are exiting from services without employment too regularly. A 70% exit rate without employment has been consistent since the beginning of the pandemic, and our target is to reduce that ratio to 30%. The agency is aligned with the SRC, and are incorporating their recommendations for ensuring that DSB customers clearly understand the expectations of career preparation at the initial stages of interaction with the program and throughout services. We are aligned with a need to revise processes to ensure that the customer experience is streamlined, expedited, and meaningful. We are aligned with the need to ensure career preparedness is the main focus of every conversation, that the preparedness is in line with the current labor market, and that vendors are trained to understand and support and raise expectations around visual disability.
The Category Two set of recommendations refer to the agency’s need to manage the skillsets of a predominantly new internal workforce, and to provide new systems of training to ensure all DSB team members – no matter their job class - understand, support and raise expectations around visual disability, and have the technical skills to provide the highest quality services to each DSB customer.
The Category Three set of recommendations relate to the agency’s shared understanding that our DeafBlind customers are underserved. The DeafBlind community is identified through the CSNA and other data as our target underserved community, and we will be working to improve the customer experience and assure equitable services for the DeafBlind community during this state plan four year period.