Creating an Employment Collaborative

Abstract

BACKGROUND: With the passage of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act of 2014 (WIOA), and its explicit emphasis on Federal, State, and local collaboration, a need for innovative and effective strategies for effectuating efficacious collaborative methodologies seems apropos. This APSE presentation briefly discusses both old and new methodologies for job development, and displays one collaborative approach that can be utilized in holding fidelity to a dual-customer approach for employment services for individuals with disabilities, and meeting WIOA requirements. OBJECTIVE: Identify the unique ways in which a collaborative network of employment service providers and other key stakeholders servicing the Northeast Ohio Area developed and improved employment outcomes for both businesses, community partners, and job seekers with disabilities, and identify how the implementation of this type of collaborative partnership can better support a demand-side approach to the business engagement component of job development, and the supply-side matching efficiency of job seekers for the person-centered components of job development. CONCLUSIONS: The collaborative model expressed, and the associated guiding principles, have shown promise and effectiveness in bringing stakeholders from a variety of perspectives together. Further, it has displayed an increase in successful employment outcomes for people with disabilities. Lastly, while the examples put forth have been tailored to serve the unique population and geography of the region identified, the authors assert that implementing a collaborative strategy similar and in congruence with the model would be beneficial to any.

Collaboration between mental health and vocational rehabilitation programs for transition-age youth vocational outcomes.

“…While models of interagency collaboration to improve employment outcomes for individuals with disabilities that include state VR agencies (e.g., Carpenter & Daly, 2019; Henry et al, 2015), MH agencies (Boeltzig et al, 2008), or both (Fesko et al, 2008; Weinstock & Barker, 1995) have been described in the literature, their outcomes have rarely been evaluated. The scant research literature on the outcomes of cross-system collaboration comes from findings in human services and health care.…”

Rethinking Management Information Systems for Scaling up Employment Outcomes

“…Government Accountability Office, 2012; Wehman et al, 2018). For example, Carpenter and Daly (2019) reported positive outcomes of a collaborative of 38 employment providers who regularly shared job lead information with the intent of leveraging synergies and maximizing the quality of job matches. Moreover, after addressing protection of confidentiality, MIS could be set up to interface with other human services (e.g., residential or day programs) to leverage contextual information about services job seekers received in the present or past and to streamline supports.…”