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Columns::March 31, 2003
Alan Darvill, CCRC co-director, is appointed to Regents Professorship
Two students receive Goldwater Scholarship; another named Truman Scholar
A spring break with Seoul
Former Gov. Harris will speak at spring commencement ceremony
‘Caring’ effort recognized
Tag team: CCRC researchers help design better disease treatments
Campus Closeup
Administrative Changes
Kudos
Bundles of energy
Land of the Morning Calm
Campus News
Grant will boost job choices for people with disabilities
By John Weber
jweber@uga.edu
The U.S. Department of Labor has awarded a $3.3 million grant over five years to implement employment supports for people with substantial disabilities. Titled “Jobs for All: An Olmstead Employment Initiative,” the grant was issued to the Statewide Independent Living Council of Georgia and will be implemented under contract to UGA’s Institute on Human Development and Disability.
The grant represents a partnership of more than 10 state and regional agencies and will be a milestone in making possible individualized, customized employment for people with substantial disabilities in Georgia, according to Wendy Parent of IHDD, the grant’s principal investigator. The grant focuses on people who previously were thought to be unemployable.
“This grant will set in motion a model for the evaluation, training, and implementation of em-ployment practices within all levels of the state’s employment network,” Parent says. “The grant also will create opportunities for college students to work within the project and learn about supported employment.”
The initiative originated with the “One-Stop Career Centers” developed by the Georgia Department of Labor. These sites, situated in key geographic areas, are designed to offer customer-focused, user-friendly services, both for individuals and for businesses. It is GDOL’s stated policy that people with disabilities should also be able to use the One-Stop network.
To help attain this goal, a collaborative headed by the Statewide Independent Living Council proposed the “Jobs for All” model. The project is designed to significantly increase the number of people with disabilities in customized job settings. The multi-agency, person-centered approach is designed to coordinate services across agency and department boundaries.
In the first year, Parent estimates at least 30 individuals with substantial disabilities will become employed in competitive jobs because of supports purchased with the funds.
The model will be implemented simultaneously in urban, suburban and rural areas. This geographic diversity will provide insight into the employment challenges in different types of communities, which will be useful when the project is expanded to other areas.
IHDD will implement the model through subcontracts with three organizations: Multiple Choices Independent Living Center in Athens-Clarke County, Kelley Diversified in Habersham County and Douglas County Community Service Board. In the second year of the grant, these sites will be joined by a Gwinnett County site, and in the fourth and fifth years IHDD will subcontract with the One-Stops throughout Georgia. At that time persons with substantial disabilities will access the One-Stops directly.
“Our culture often denies people with disabilities the opportunity to show their worth to the economy,” says Doug Hatch, director of Multiple Choices Independent Living Center in Athens and a project subcontractor. “This initiative will clearly demonstrate the worth, value and untapped potential our society so often overlooks.”
Parent estimates that as many as 190 people with substantial disabilities will become employed in customized jobs during the project.
“This project fulfills the promise of the self-determination movement, namely that people with disabilities control the financial resources that pay for their services,” says Zolinda Stoneman, IHDD director. “Working with an employment broker, they choose and hire the agencies or people to provide them with needed employment services. In this effort, the University of Georgia leads the way for the state, and ultimately the nation, to tailor employment services so that they meet the needs and desires of people with disabilities who want to work.”
Stoneman describes this project as a continuation of Parent’s ongoing work in supported employment, and says that IHDD is the only program in Georgia to focus on integrated employment for recently de-institutionalized individuals with substantial disabilities. |
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