The National Resource Center for Healthy Marriage and Families will host a webinar on October 10, 2019 from 2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. ET to discuss strategies for supporting parents of children with special needs. Presenters will share tips on what parents can do to create a hopeful future for themselves as a couple and for their child. Topics to be covered include strategies parents can use after finding out that their newborn has a developmental disability, and resources for helping later in their child’s transition to adulthood. This webinar is intended for service providers who work with parents as well as parents and guardians themselves. Speakers from the UCLA School of Nursing, University of Utah, and Utah Parent Center will present.

This Mathematica study analyzes the Pathways to Careers Program, which is a customized employment service model to support persons with significant disabilities access employment. This report looks at the employment, wage, and earnings outcome of Pathways participants compared to those participants who participate in traditional vocational rehabilitation (VR) programs.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration has posted a set of data resources and publications to identify rates of labor force participation among people with disabilities, as well as to illustrate the barriers to the labor market this population faces.

This National Skills Coalition research-to-practice brief identifies ways that adult education, vocational rehabilitation, and workforce development partners can collaborate and strengthen each respective system to create and enhance educational and economic opportunities for adults with physical or mental disabilities. The brief also describes an example of how this alignment and collaboration has been implemented in the Rural Capital area near Austin, Texas.

Texas’s Summer Earn and Learn (SEAL) program and the Promoting Readiness of Minors in Supplemental Security Income (PROMISE) programs in Arkansas are identified as successful examples of collaboration between vocational rehabilitation agencies and workforce boards. This Mathematica report also identifies key features of the programs so that policymakers can choose, develop, and adapt similar partnerships within their own context.

The Ticket to Work program provides individuals with disabilities receiving disability benefits opportunities to return to work, stay employed, and increase earnings. As a result, beneficiaries with disabilities may reduce their dependency on public benefits and become more economically self-sufficient. This webinar (on September 12) focuses on how Ticket to Work operates and the different partnership models now available consistent with the goals of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA).

On October 17, Mathematica Policy Research will discuss the historical trends of the work activity of people with disabilities, as well as new insights from three studies on Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) recipients. Background on the employment landscape since the Great Depression, coupled with an analysis of changes in work activities of SSDI recipients from 2005 to 2015, will contextualize the arena of disability work and insurance to inform policymakers about the obstacles to employment that this population faces.

This webinar explored promising practices and programs from TANF programs and Department of Labor grantees that help TANF recipients with a disability move toward employment. The webinar examined opportunities and challenges in providing supports and services as well as strategies and approaches, such as customized employment being used to help recipients with a disability secure and maintain employment. It explored opportunities for partnerships between TANF and disability and workforce programs to promote employment outcomes and:

• Provided a context for the connection between disability, TANF, and intergenerational poverty.
• Shared information on evidence-based approaches that offer universal design strategies for youth on TANF and/or in families receiving TANF support.
• Provided information on different user-friendly strategies for implementing Customized Employment, another universal design evidence-based approach to employment that better ensures a successful job match with higher retention rates.
• Highlighted states that are implementing successful practices to engage and support people with disabilities that promote employment outcomes.
• Provided links to resources that can assist TANF program staff in designing programs and providing services that promote employment outcomes for youth and adults with disabilities.

This webinar was held on Thursday, July 12, 2018 from 12:30 to 2:00 p.m. EDT. 

The National Governors Association (NGA) produced a white paper to outline the challenges persons with disabilities face entering and maintaining employment. Drawn from NGA’s participation in the State Exchange on Employment and Disability (SEED) initiative supported by the U.S. Department of Labor, the white paper also includes strategies as a result of a learning lab in May 2018. Strategies reflect four priority areas: preparing people with disabilities for careers; supporting and retaining employees with disabilities; engaging employers in education and training; and coordinating services and supports across state agencies.

The 2016 National Survey of Children’s Health found that 19 percent of children under the age of 17 are “children and youth with special health needs.” These children and their families require a broad set of supports to meet their respective health, social, educational, and other needs. This Child Trends report identifies a framework to support these families’ navigation across different support systems to coordinate and be eligible for resources provided under the Maternal and Child Health Services Block Grant (Title V), the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Medicaid, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, and the Supplemental Security Income programs.