Disability Employment Initiative to provide $15M in grants

The U.S. Department of Labor today announced the availability of approximately $15 million in grants to state workforce agencies to develop flexible and innovative strategies to increase the participation of people with disabilities in existing career pathways programs in the public workforce system.


These grants represent the fifth round of funding through the Disability Employment Initiative, a joint program of the Labor Department's Employment and Training Administration and the Office of Disability Employment Policy.
"People with disabilities have enormous contributions to make to our economy, and they are still disproportionately represented among the unemployed," said U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez. "These grants will help ensure that these workers have better access to training programs that lead to good jobs and economic self-sufficiency."


The DEI intends to build the public workforce system's capacity to effectively serve youth and adults with disabilities. To date the department has awarded more than $81 million through four rounds of funding to 26 projects that have resulted in significant improvements in the delivery of services to people with disabilities through the public workforce system. Improvements include: increasing the accessibility of American Job Centers; training front-line AJC and partner staff; and increasing partnerships and collaboration across numerous systems that are critical for assisting youth and adults with disabilities in securing meaningful employment.


Through the current competition, the department will build upon these and other successful DEI project strategies to ensure that people with disabilities can access career pathways programs through the AJCs nationwide. The department intends to award at least one grant in each of three population focus areas: 

1. projects that focus on adults (ages 18 and older) with disabilities;
2. projects that focus on youth (ages 14-24) with disabilities; and
3. projects that focus on individuals (ages 14 and older) with significant disabilities.

For purposes of this grant application solicitation, individuals with significant disabilities include job seekers who: have physical, sensory, mental, cognitive, intellectual or developmental disabilities; receive Supplemental Security Income or Social Security Disability Insurance benefits; and require significant accommodations, supports and customization of job responsibilities in order to obtain and maintain integrated employment at or above minimum wage.


Source: DOL

This information is intended to be educational and should not be considered legal advice on any specific matter.

An Important Development for Workers with Disabilities

by Kathy Martinez on June 14, 2013

This week witnessed an important development in protecting the rights of workers and job seekers with significant disabilities. As the assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Disability Employment Policy, I applaud the decision of the department’s Wage and Hour Division to revoke all special minimum wage certificates issued to a Rhode Island disability services provider for numerous legal violations and to require fair payment for affected workers with disabilities.

The decision followed a Wage and Hour Division investigation that found workers were not being paid for all hours worked, and that the company had failed to determine the appropriate wage for each worker as required by law. What’s more, the company had falsified documents in order to mislead investigators.

The U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Civil Rights has also negotiated a legal agreement between the city of Providence and two additional entities in the state to transition individuals with significant disabilities into integrated employment and community-based day services. Thursday’s announcements by the Wage and Hour Division and the Justice Department support an evolving collaborative model between our government’s enforcement entities to ensure that the rights of workers and job seekers with disabilities are protected and their access to integrated employment and other community-based supports are encouraged.

We all have a collective responsibility to ensure that youth and adults living with significant disabilities have viable options to seek and gain meaningful integrated employment opportunities and receive real wages for real jobs. To that effect, the Office of Disability Employment Policy believes that publicly funded supports should, first and foremost, help people live healthy, productive lives by getting them employed in community-based jobs that utilize their talents and abilities and compensate them fairly for their contributions.

ODEP stands ready to help states, businesses and providers improve access to integrated employment and other community-based supports as the first option for youth and adults with significant disabilities. I commend my colleagues for protecting the rights of workers with disabilities and enforcing compliance with the law. Even more, I encourage private and public sector employers to consider the multitude of contributions that people with disabilities can bring to the workplace.

Kathy Martinez is the assistant secretary of labor for disability employment policy.

This information is intended to be educational and should not be considered legal advice on any specific matter.

Breaking Down Barriers to Employment, For All Workers

President Obama has laid out a vision that asks us to make our country a magnet for jobs; to equip Americans with the skills to succeed in those jobs; and to ensure that a hard day’s work leads to a decent living.

At the Labor Department, we are committed to making sure that people with disabilities are included in that vision. On Monday, we announced a fourth round of funding for the Disability Employment Initiative, a successful program that is expanding the capacity of the public workforce system to help people with disabilities find good jobs.

Last month, previous DEI grantees came to the Labor Department to share about this program’s impressive return on investment. Among the DEI pilot sites, the percentage of people with disabilities who have found jobs is up to 40 percent higher compared with non-DEI sites.

In this round, we will be awarding four to eight new cooperative agreements − worth a total of nearly $18 million − to state workforce agencies, which in turn will collaborate with local workforce investment boards. Partnerships are the key to DEI’s success. By integrating with vocational rehabilitation, Medicaid, Social Security, transportation and other programs, DEI grantees are addressing the employment-related needs of people with disabilities holistically.

 

And while this initiative obviously focuses on people with disabilities, our research on workforce strategies concludes that many, if not most, practices promoted through DEI are actually universal strategies that can benefit people with other complex barriers to employment like poverty, limited language proficiency and low levels of education.

In just a few short years, DEI is already making a powerful difference in the lives of workers with disabilities. But the truth is that we have much work ahead. The March unemployment rate for people with disabilities is 13.0 percent, more than two points better than a year ago but still daunting. Look at this way: if you’re a person with disabilities, you’re living through a recession more devastating even than anything the nation as a whole experienced in 2008 and 2009.

Then there’s this eye-popping statistic: only 20.7 percent of people with disabilities are participating in the labor force at all. Plus, a new report just issued today by the department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that half of all people with a disability report some type of barrier to employment, whether it’s disability itself, a lack of education or training, transportation problems or the need for special features on the job.

These numbers show a shocking waste of human capital and should be a blaring wake-up call for us to do more. There are millions of people with disabilities out there who can work and want to work. They don’t want to spend their lives on public assistance; they’re that rare group of Americans who want to pay more taxes. They simply want to wake up every morning and head to a job that provides a sense of independence, dignity and purpose, to say nothing of a paycheck at the end of the week. They’re tired of living in the shadows; they want to live in the economic mainstream.

To build a strong economy that grows from the middle class out, we must provide ladders of opportunity for and capitalize on the talents of all people. That’s the philosophy behind DEI. It is about inclusion, civil rights and fundamental fairness; but it is also a smart economic growth strategy for the 21^st century.

Source: DOL's Jane Oats and Kathy Martinez

This information is intended to be educational and should not be considered legal advice on any specific matter.

Nearly $18 million in grants for state workforce agencies now available through US Labor Department’s Disability Employment Initiative

The U.S. Department of Labor will fund four to eight cooperative agreements totaling nearly $18 million to improve educational, training and employment opportunities for individuals with disabilities.
 
The grants represent the fourth round of funding through the Disability Employment Initiative, which is jointly funded and administered by two Labor Department agencies, the Employment and Training Administration and the Office of Disability Employment Policy. To date, the department has awarded grants totaling more than $63 million in 23 states.

"The Disability Employment Initiative is working to put job seekers with disabilities to work," said acting Secretary of Labor Seth D. Harris. "Through the American Job Center system, DEI programs in 23 states — and more to come with these additional grants — are providing people with disabilities a broad range of services."

The purpose of the cooperative agreements is to foster service delivery through the public workforce investment system for job seekers with disabilities. Funds will be awarded to state workforce agencies to collaborate with workforce investment boards in local areas. Awards will range from $1.5 to $6 million each to be spent over a three-year period. Programs will build upon the Labor Department's Disability Program Navigator Initiative and other model service delivery strategies such as Customized Employment and the Guideposts for Success.

The complete solicitation for grant applications is available at http://www.grants.gov/search/search.do?mode=VIEW&oppId=231216. Prospective applicants are encouraged to view the online tutorial "Grant Applications 101: A Plain English Guide to ETA Competitive Grants" available at http://www.workforce3one.org/page/grants_toolkit.

Source: DOL

This information is intended to be educational and should not be considered legal advice on any specific matter.

Real People, Real Impact

One of my greatest honors has been being confirmed as the third assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Disability Employment Policy in June 2009. Since that time, I have had the daily pleasure of working with ODEP’s dedicated staff to strengthen the foundation built by my predecessors as well as the many individuals before them whose efforts lead to ODEP’s establishment in 2001.

 

 

Every day, we at ODEP — in collaboration with a range of stakeholders from both the private and public sectors — work steadfastly to address the persistent barriers to employment for people with disabilities from a public policy perspective. As a result, the conversation about disability employment has evolved — from one focused on whether people with disabilities can work to one more aptly focused on how to ensure they can succeed in and contribute to our nation’s workforce and economy.

 

 

This critical paradigm shift is reflected in the Obama administration’s disability employment agenda and corresponding accomplishments, which are outlined in a recently released report, “Real People, Real Impact.” From our innovative Add Us In grants to our efforts to make the federal government a model employer; from our “Soft Skills” curriculum for transitioning youth to our research on the implications of an aging workforce; from our national Campaign for Disability Employment to our state-level efforts to promote integrated employment, the activities described in this report reflect the breadth and depth of our work.

But, the real impact of our work is perhaps best illustrated through the experiences of the real people who embody the policies and practices we work to advance. Four years in, we can see the results of our initiatives to promote positive change.

We see the results of policy initiatives to increase the federal employment of people with disabilities in people like Joy Welan, a trial attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice who has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair. We see the results of policy initiatives to increase opportunities for integrated employment for people with disabilities in people like Mark Trezise, a clerk at a county government office who has an intellectual disability. We see the results of policy initiatives to support the return-to-work of people with disabilities in people like Rob Guttenberg, a youth and family counselor with acquired cognitive and physical disabilities.

Of course, these are just a few examples of outcomes of the policies ODEP works to advance. And while we’re proud of our accomplishments on these and many other priority areas, our work is far from done.

People with disabilities — like me — have the skills and talent to add significant value to America’s workplaces and economy. Yet, whether good economic times or bad, we’ve had far fewer opportunities to prove it than those without disabilities. This is unacceptable and contradicts the ideals upon which our nation was founded. At ODEP, we look forward to continuing to evolve the conversation so that America’s promise of equal opportunity for all truly means all.

Source: ODEP's Kathy Martinez

This information is intended to be educational and should not be considered legal advice on any specific matter.