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
j. 1. B. Who are minorities;
Current Narrative:
To assess the needs of individuals with disabilities who are minorities, unserved or underserved, LRS extracted information from various surveys including LRS consumers, Workforce Partners/Stakeholders/Title 121 and LRS employees.
When asked about barriers to employment, respondents reported the following needs:
Comprehensive services are needed for individuals who have psychological disabilities, who are and ex-felons with disabilities. This includes mental health & substance abuse counseling, career counseling, vocational training, work readiness training, supported employment services, job placement, housing, and transportation. Services needed for individuals living in rural areas are more vendors to provide services such as job skills and job readiness training, job placement assistance, employment opportunities and transportation. Individuals not meeting LRS’ economic need criteria need a range of services that cannot be provided by LRS without additional funding and a change in the financial need criteria currently established.
LRS will develop strategies to address these identified needs in collaboration with the State’s Department of Corrections, Department of Health, Department of Transportation and other partners. LRS will also assess the current economic need criteria to determine if changes can be made in an effort to provide more services to those individuals who are not currently being served.
It was also noted that LRS needs to do more outreach to rural communities, students and employed individuals who may need accommodations such as assistive technology devices.