Community Rehabilitation/Service Providers

The Institute for Community Inclusion (ICI) partnered with The Arc of the United States to identify ten elements of successful organizational transformation to competitive integrated employment. They asked four providers who successfully closed sheltered workshops to provide implementation strategies that they used according to each of the ten elements. Based on the information gathered from these providers, the attached brief will:

Download the slides here. In conjunction with The Arc of the United States, this powerpoint offers ten essential elements necessary for successful organizational transformation, along with strategies for implementing each element. 

Interviews with employment consultants reveal 5 key elements for supporting job seekers with disabilities. This brief describes 5 key elements for supporting job seekers with intellectual and developmental disabilities in finding individual paid employment:

The decision to close a facility-based program requires courage and a willingness to take concrete and often risky steps toward that goal. As more organizations develop strategic plans that include the goal of closing a facility-based program, it is our hope that these summaries will provide both guidance and the determination to take substantive steps in the change process. This volume summarizes the themes that were repeated across the experiences of these organizations.

These three case studies are part of a larger study of six organizations that have closed a sheltered workshop or a nonwork, segregated program and replaced it with integrated employment or other integrated, community-based activities for individuals with disabilities.

Continuing the expansion of integrated employment opportunities requires a clear understanding of the organizational and systems factors that influence change and expand access to integrated employment. This monograph will focus on change at an organizational level in four organizations that were engaged in a change process during 1998 and 1999.

Expanding participation in integrated employment is a key goal for both state agencies and individual community rehabilitation providers. The Training and Technical Assistance for Providers project, or T-TAP, was funded by the U.S.

Over the past 15 years there have been substantial changes in the delivery and funding of day and employment services for individuals with disabilities. Most notably, the introduction of supported employment has led to a dramatic increase in the number of individuals with severe disabilities in integrated community employment. Despite these promising changes, the implementation of supported employment has not resulted in a transfer of resources and services from facilities to integrated employment.

  Watch the recorded webinar here.  In the fall of 2017, researchers from the Institute for Community Inclusion (ICI) will lead a series of online discussions on the "State of the Science" (SoS) in employment for people with IDD. We'll be looking at ways to engage people with disabilities, their families, and their services providers to think differently about employment and the future of employment research.