The Employment Learning Community (ELC) is an Administration on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities-funded project that promotes systems change to improve competitive employment outcomes for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). The ELC’s primary activities are technical assistance and peer-to-peer networking and information sharing through Communities of Practice (CoPs). Through a competitive process, seven states were selected as members of the ELC: District of Columbia, Idaho, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and North Dakota. Participating states are required to have a consortium focused on employment systems change. Consortium members represent state agencies, the developmental disabilities network, educators, and service providers. State project staff and their consortium members select topics for Communities of Practice and participate in those CoPs of interest to them. In addition to gathering states’ input on topics for CoPs, the project convened a panel of national subject matter experts to participate in a Delphi process. Their task was to sort, analyze, and recommend the most cogent policies and practices that promote state systems change. Their final responses will be considered in the formation of new topical CoPs in the last two years of the project.
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