New approaches to customized employment: Enhancing cross-system partnerships

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Over the last 15 years, customization has emerged nationally as a powerful job creation strategy for a wide variety of people, including those who experience the most significant disabilities or other barriers to employment. Following the passage of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act of 2014 (WIOA), the state of Oregon partnered with the National Center on Leadership for the Employment and Economic Advancement of People with Disabilities (LEAD Center) to explore a new approach to Customized Employment (CE) called Guided Group Discovery (GGD) (2018), in which multiple systems/agencies can support youth and adults to achieve an employment outcome. OBJECTIVE: This paper explores approaches to bring Guided Group Discovery to scale through cross-system partnerships, leveraging Pre-Employment Transition Services (Pre-ETS) and funding to improve employment outcomes for youth. METHODS: During school year 2017-18, Oregon Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) and the LEAD Center created a partnership to modify and implement the LEAD Center’s Guided Group Discovery curriculum, with support from six school districts, to make it more accessible to youth with disabilities that were benefiting from their Pre-Employment Transition Services. This project also leveraged the resources of the workforce system, through partnerships with local American Job Centers (AJCs). RESULTS: The facilitators of GGD in the Oregon pilot sites received unanimous feedback from student participants that the GGD process had real-life impact. Students indicated that they had a better understanding of the myriad of adult service agencies available to them, as well as how to contact and connect with them. They reported that they now felt comfortable with what they have to offer an employer and knew how to communicate that to potential employers. Schools will be continuing to implement GGD, some starting with younger students, and new schools will be initiating GGD pilots in the 2018-2019