The LEAD Center, in collaboration with the National Council for Independent Living (NCIL), established a community of practice (COP) on employment and economic advancement to provide peer-to-peer mentorship, training and technical assistance to Centers for Independent Living (CILs) and their local American Job Centers (AJCs). Ongoing trainings and discussions will support economic advancement for CIL and AJC customers seeking employment and engaged in the workforce. The goals for the community of practice are to:

• Create a sustainable forum to enable staff at CILs and AJCs to learn from each other and work collaboratively to improve the employment and economic advancement of customers with disabilities.
• Provide training and technical assistance to CIL and AJC staff to build their capacity to implement economic advancement strategies that remove barriers that keep people with disabilities from getting and keeping jobs.
• Develop and disseminate guidance to educate and train job seekers and the people who support them at AJCs and CILs so that they can get support to become employed, retain employment, and become financially secure.

In March, the LEAD Center led the first discussion forum with the five CILs (Disability Rights and Resources in Birmingham, Ala.; IndependenceFirst in Milwaukee, Wisc.; Paraquad in St. Louis, Mo.; Montana Independent Living Project in Helena, Mont.; and Community Resources for Independent Living in Hayward, Calif.). The participating CILs collaborated with AJCs and the LEAD Center in a first-of-its-kind pilot project in 2013. The new COP builds on the progress and best practices learned from last year’s pilot to address challenges that create barriers to obtaining and maintaining employment, which impede the financial stability of people with disabilities across both systems.

To complement the COP and build on best practices from last year’s CIL pilot project, the LEAD Center is preparing to release a toolkit in the next quarter that CILs and AJCs can utilize to facilitate closer partnerships and understanding that lead to better outcomes for jobseekers with disabilities.

To learn more about the COP, please contact Elizabeth Jennings, LEAD Center Assistant Project Director, [email protected].

You are invited to join our partner, the LEAD Center for the webinar “Integrating Employment and Financial Capability Services – New Pathways to Economic Stability” on Wednesday, February 26, 2014 3:00 – 4:30 p.m. EST.

Register online.

The US Department of Labor, Office of Disability Employment Policy and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau work across agencies to advance positive financial behavior and greater economic self-sufficiency for individuals with disabilities. CFPB brings extraordinary new resources and expertise to help all jobseekers and workers, including persons with disabilities, increase their financial capability as they enter or advance in employment.

Did you know that almost 50% of employers are now reviewing credit scores before making a decision about hiring job applicants? Did you know that financial stress is a major reason for loss of worker productivity and increase absenteeism? CFPB offers a portfolio of new resources that will promote more informed decision making and better prepare jobseekers and workers with disabilities to set financial goals towards a better economic future. In the workforce development system, American Job Centers are testing new ways of bringing together financial education and financial empowerment services as part of core and intensive service delivery. Whether a workforce development professional or a person with a disability seeking to improve their economic status, this LEAD Center webinar will help you become familiar and better prepared to take full advantage of a new way of thinking about the integration of employment and financial capability services.  [Read more…]

Any of us can acquire a disability at any time, and all of us have a stake in making equal employment opportunity the rule rather than the exception. – Senator Tom Harkin (2012)

Get involved!

The NCIL Board of Directors has officially endorsed the CareerACCESS policy initiative. The California State Council on Developmental Disabilities has written both Houses of Congress requesting that these pilot projects be funded and implemented.

• As a youth with a disability, help drive the CareerACCESS discussion by reviewing the CareerACCESS Summary below and sending us feedback: Will this work? What’s missing that is essential to making it work?

Send your comments and questions to [email protected].

CareerACCESS: Summary of Main Features

Adult Coaching, Counseling, and Employment Support Services, or CareerACCESS

The Challenge

Since 1956, young people with disabilities must prove their inability to work to be eligible for Social Security disability programs. In particular, SSI (Supplemental Security Income) recipients are relegated to lives of poverty to remain eligible for cash benefits and access to health care. Current SSI rules leave recipients no ability to build assets, resulting in little success moving from poverty into self-sustaining jobs and careers. Youth with disabilities who are exploring work must balance their need for financial assistance, health care, personal attendant care and accommodation requirements while overcoming low cultural expectations, lack of employment experience and challenging job markets.

The Social Security disability rolls grow annually while the employment rates of people with disabilities stay the same.

We Can Meet This Challenge.

The goal of the 12 year CareerACCESS pilot projects is to markedly increase employment rates for American youth with disabilities and provide more effective alternatives to current SSI rules.

This proposed legislative framework, using and building on existing, innovative practices, is designed to reverse these trends and increase employment success for American youth with disabilities. Piloted in up to 5 states, CareerACCESS will serve youth who are otherwise eligible for SSI, and eliminate the requirement for applicants to prove an inability to work. Youth with disabilities will be required to explore career options and develop a personal plan to achieve their goals.  [Read more…]

On February 4, the Collaboration for the Promotion of Self Determination, a coalition of twenty one progressive disability rights groups sent the following letter to the White House and the Department of Labor. CPSD’s members were also joined by a number of broader civil rights groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Japanese American Citizens League and the Service Employees International Union.

The letter and signatories can be found below. For more information on this  topic, please see ASAN’s Legal Analysis Memo on the President’s Authority to Prohibit Subminimum Wage for Employees of Federal Contractors.

Dear Mr. President and Secretary Perez:

As national partners of the Collaboration to Promote Self-Determination (CPSD), we were pleased to read that you will soon be issuing an executive order to increase the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour for federal contract workers. At the same time, we are profoundly concerned by recent statements suggesting that workers with disabilities employed by government contractors with 14c certificates will not be covered by the new $10.10 minimum wage.

CPSD is an advocacy network of 21 national organizations who have come together to bring about a significant modernization of the federal adult system of services and supports for persons with disabilities.

As you know, many workers with disabilities are employed by government contractors, particularly those associated with the AbilityOne Commission. Government contractors who hold 14c certificates from the U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division have been permitted to pay less than minimum wage to workers with disabilities. We believe that all Americans should be afforded minimum wage protections, including those workers with disabilities.

Recent statements from the administration have suggested that employees with disabilities working for federal contractors with 14c certificates will be excluded from the new $10.10/hour minimum wage and will only benefit to a minimal degree in so far as their subminimum wage compensation will now be calculated as a portion of the higher minimum wage required by the executive order. We believe this is fundamentally unjust.

Mr. President and Secretary Perez, all employees of federal contractors should mean all employees, regardless of disability status. In the last several years, we have seen commitments from Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York and Oregon to phase out the use of sheltered workshops – the primary setting where disabled workers are paid less than minimum wage. Vermont ended the use of both sheltered workshops and subminimum wage employment of people with disabilities in 2003. We believe this progress shows that it is both economically sound and morally just to ensure that people with disabilities have access to the same wage protections as those without. While a broader end to subminimum wage and Section 14c may require an act of Congress, we believe that the Administration has the authority to end the use of subminimum wage for employees of federal contractors immediately, through the use of the same executive order establishing the new $10.10/hour requirement.  [Read more…]

The US Office of Personnel Management has announced that the Fiscal Year 2012 Employment of People with Disabilities in the Federal Executive Branch Report has been released.

Highlights from the report include:

• At no point in the past 32 years have people with disabilities been hired at a higher percentage than in Fiscal Year 2012.
• People with targeted disabilities are also being brought into the Federal workforce at a higher percentage now than at any time in the past 17 years.
• This success has led to more people with disabilities in Federal service both in real terms and by percentage than at any time in the past 32 years.

Resources

• Read the report (PDF)
• Press Release
• Additional Resources: OPM Twitter, Facebook, and Blog

An Update from the NCIL Employment Subcommittee

The NCIL Board of Directors officially endorsed the CareerACCESS Program policy initiative at the 2013 Annual Conference on Independent Living. We are very proud to announce that researchers at Social Security and legislative analysts on Capitol Hill have taken this proposal under serious review since that time.

CareerACCESS pilot projects in up to five states could revolutionize how seamless services and supports come to youth who are eligible for the SSI program (Social Security’s Supplemental Security Income program). CareerACCESS is a policy project partnership between NCIL, the World Institute on Disability, and PolicyWorks.

NCIL and the Employment / Social Security Subcommittee encourage NCIL youth to talk this subject up, and send their interest in working on this policy project to the NCIL Employment / Social Security Subcommittee. Contact Subcommittee Chair Bryon MacDonald with your interest in getting involved:  [email protected].

The CareerACCESS Program – Legislative Summary

Adult Coaching, Counseling, and Employment Support Services – Independence Through Employment

The Challenge

Since 1956, young people with disabilities must prove their inability to work to be eligible for Social Security disability programs. In particular, SSI (Supplemental Security Income) recipients are relegated to lives of poverty to remain eligible for cash benefits and access to health care. Current SSI rules leave recipients no ability to build assets, resulting in little success moving from poverty into self-sustaining jobs and careers. Youth with disabilities who are exploring work must balance their need for financial assistance, health care, personal attendant care and accommodation requirements while overcoming low cultural expectations, lack of employment experience and an extremely challenging job market.

The Social Security disability rolls grow annually while the employment rates of people with disabilities stay the same.

This proposed legislative framework, using and building on existing, innovative practices, is designed to reverse these trends and increase employment success for American youth with disabilities. Piloted in up to 5 states, CareerACCESS will serve youth who are otherwise eligible for SSI, and eliminate the requirement for applicants to prove an inability to work. Youth with disabilities will be required to explore career options and develop a personal plan to achieve their goals. The CareerACCESS initiative provides youth up to age 30 with life coaching, benefit/asset building counseling, and employment support services, while maintaining SSI cash benefits, health care, and encouraging asset building throughout this pivotal life transition period.

The goal of the 12 year pilot projects is to markedly increase employment rates for American youth with disabilities and provide a more effective alternative to current SSI rules by 2027.  [Read more…]

Are you a person with a disability? Do you have a family member or close friend with a disability? Do you work or volunteer in this field? If so, please take 10-15 minutes to take this survey focused on opportunities for people with disabilities in America. Finish the survey and you will be entered for a chance to win $500!

RespectAbility is proud to have worked with more than a dozen national organizations to develop this online survey on jobs and disability issues. The results of this poll will be shared with the White House, all 50 Governors, top media, disability groups and more. Your specific answers will be kept in confidence, and your opinion is wanted!

Participate in the survey.

The Youth Transitions Collaborative is seeking the resumes of young people and young veterans with disabilities, who are looking for work (full-time or part-time) in the private sector. These resumes will be incorporated into a database that will help employers connect with qualified young candidates with disabilities. The National Youth Transitions Resume Database will be national in scope and will be open to young people and employers from across the country. If you know someone interested in submitting a resume, please have them send it to [email protected]. Once a resume is received, individuals will be asked to complete a short form which details their occupational and geographic preferences, etc.

Resume Guidelines  [Read more…]

Congratulations, NCIL Advocates!

Leaders in the Senate reached an agreement on Tuesday to allow five of President Barack Obama’s seven nominees a vote on the Senate Floor without a Republican filibuster.

Today, Tom Perez, who currently heads the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, was confirmed as the next Secretary of Labor. The confirmation required a simple majority and passed by a vote of 54-46.

The National Council on Independent Living has been a strong supporter of Mr. Perez’s nomination to lead Department of Labor, primarily due to his steadfast commitment to civil rights and Americans with disabilities.

Today is a day for celebration. NCIL would like to thank our members for their advocacy. Your commitment to protecting the rights and advancing the interests of Americans with Disabilities continues to amaze us.

Within the next few hours, the Secretary of the Senate will post the results of the Senate Roll Call vote at this link. See which Senators voted in favor of Perez’s confirmation and those who voted against it. Then, contact Your Senator to tell them what their vote meant to you.