Advocacy Monitor

• Thursday, April 28, 2016; 3:00 – 4:30 p.m. Eastern
• Register online

April is Financial Capability Month. The White House has encouraged Americans to “recommit to equipping individuals with the knowledge and protections necessary to secure a stable financial future for themselves and their families.” To support you in your efforts to equip the individuals you serve with the financial knowledge they need to improve their employment and economic advancement outcomes, the LEAD Center is offering a webinar that brings together representatives from the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA); Employment and Training Administration (ETA), Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP); the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation); and the City of Louisville’s Metro Community Services workgroup on Workforce and Financial Empowerment. Join us to learn about financial literacy tools and resources, along with implementation strategies to integrate within your employment and workforce development services. [Read more…]

• Thursday, March 24th, 2016; 3:00 – 4:30 p.m. Eastern
• Register online

The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) provides new opportunities for American Job Centers (AJCs) to partner with Centers for Independent Living (CILs) leading to improved employment outcomes for job seekers with disabilities. To support these partnerships, the LEAD Center recently released the Independence Through Employment Toolkit, a collection of resources for CILs and AJCs to deepen their understanding of each other’s services and structure to improve the lives of job seekers with disabilities through employment.

The toolkit provide Centers for Independent Living with a basic understanding of WIOA and AJC services to encourage referrals to AJCs as a free community-based support for individuals with employment goals. The comprehensive services provided by CILs, to advocate for and support the independence of individuals with disabilities, is a perfect match with the focus of the public workforce system. CILs and AJCs are natural partners committed to improving the employment and economic advancement of all job seekers, including in-school and out-of-school youth and adults with disabilities through collaboration.

Join us to learn more about the toolkit and hear from national and local leaders who will share how CILs and AJCs are working together to create a win-win-win for CILs, AJCs, and job seekers with disabilities. Presenters include representatives from the new Independent Living Administration at the Administration for Community Living at the Department of Health and Human Services, the National Council on Independent Living (NCIL), and the Employment and Training Administration at the Department of Labor.

Please note: All LEAD Center webinars are captioned and presentation materials are sent to participants in advance of the webinar. For any other reasonable accommodation requests, please contact Brittany Taylor at [email protected].

Source: Bender Consulting

Are you a person with a disability looking for a career opportunity or internship? This Virtual Career Fair, taking place March 15, 2016, is free for students and alumni with disabilities to attend.

Unique opportunity for College students & College grads with disabilities to meet online with employers across the nation including Apple, AT&T, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Deloitte, Enterprise, Lockheed Martin, PwC, USDA!

Students and alumni are invited to interact with employers via chat sessions.

• Connect with employers looking to hire people with disabilities

[Read more…]

CareerACCESS is a policy initiative with NCIL’s Subcommittee on Employment and Social Security, the World Institute on Disability, and PolicyWorks to eliminate barriers to employment for young adults with disabilities 18 to 30 years of age (PDF).

The effort seeks reforms in SSI and Medicaid to make it easier to receive necessary guidance and supports in finding employment while managing benefits. Since it involves a radical overhaul of a punishing means-tested system that is more complex than most know how to navigate, we propose that CareerACCESS start as pilot projects to be tested in 5 states. The core group pushing this initiative forward has been hard at work over the last several months, and it looks like things are slowly coming together.

Everything great begins with solid conversations, and there has been quite a lot of conversation about CareerACCESS lately. Webinars are being organized in Tennessee, Maine, and Nebraska, where we will meet with leaders to understand the political climates of the states and to figure out if and how we might get pilot programs going. We have also begun talking to the vocational rehabilitation director in Massachusetts. The state of Vermont will be bringing representatives from our core group to come out in March to lead discussions on CareerACCESS towards a strategy for implementation. We are also presenting to the California Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities on March 10.

The immediate goal of all these conversations is to mobilize interest, dialog and political will for our initiative. A key part of the strategy involves leaders and stakeholders in the states where we are trying to set up pilot projects. We need states, along with the advocates in the state of Michigan, to ask Congress for an appropriation of money for FY2017 to set up pilot projects that include waiving asset limits and changing the current income rules in SSI and Medicaid.

Of course, the more people with disabilities who become involved in the conversation, the better, which is how you can help. If you know any legislative representatives from any of the states named above, please educate them about CareerACCESS. If you are a young adult, from anywhere in the United States, and this initiative speaks to you in some way, we want to get to know you. Contact us through the NCIL Subcommittee on Employment and Social Security, or at CareerACCESS; let’s grow the conversation.

For more information, contact Justin Harford at [email protected] or Bryon MacDonald at [email protected].

• Feb 25, 2016; 3:00 – 4:30PM ET
• Register online

The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) provides new opportunities for American Job Centers (AJCs) to partner with Centers for Independent Living (CILs) leading to improved employment outcomes for job seekers with disabilities. To support these partnerships, the LEAD Center recently released the Independence Through Employment Toolkit, a collection of resources for CILs and AJCs to deepen their understanding of each other’s services and structure to improve the lives of job seekers with disabilities through employment.

The toolkit provide Centers for Independent Living with a basic understanding of WIOA and AJC services to encourage referrals to AJCs as a free community-based support for individuals with employment goals. The comprehensive services provided by CILs, to advocate for and support the independence of individuals with disabilities, is a perfect match with the focus of the public workforce system. CILs and AJCs are natural partners committed to improving the employment and economic advancement of all job seekers, including in-school and out-of-school youth and adults with disabilities through collaboration. [Read more…]

• Wednesday, January 20, 2016; 3:00 – 4:30 p.m. Eastern
• Register online

Section 188 of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) prohibits discrimination against people who apply to, participate in, work for, or come into contact with programs and activities of the workforce development system. WIOA also requires that American Job Centers be fully accessible physically and programmatically, offering accommodations as needed and incorporating Universal Design wherever possible. LEAD Center has been working with the Missouri Division of Workforce Development, who have committed to improving access to their services statewide. Join this webinar to:

• Hear from the leaders in U.S. Department of Labor’s Civil Rights Center, Employment and Training Administration and Office of Disability Employment Policy, who jointly issued Promising Practices in Achieving Universal Access and Equal Opportunity: A Section 188 Disability Reference Guide on July 6, 2015.
• Learn about the commitment to Equal Opportunity in Missouri, and the work being done using the 188 Disability Reference Guide and based on information collected from surveying their American Job Center staff statewide, and surveying jobseekers and employers who use their services.

Please note: This webinar will be captioned and a link to download the presentation will be sent to registrants prior to the webinar. To request any other reasonable accommodations, please contact Brittany Taylor at [email protected] at least 48 hours prior to the webinar.