John Kramer

John joined the Institute for Community Inclusion (ICI) in 2008. He is currently the project lead for the Individuals and Families and Knowledge Translation strand of the RRTC on Advancing Employment project. He is currently the Knowledge Translation manager for ThinkWork. He manages and organizes the dissemination efforts of ThinkWork projects that target audiences including government agency personnel, community rehabilitation providers and other disability organizations, families, researchers and individuals with disabilities.  He is currently working on the state systems research and evaluation team. John's work at the ICI has included the Employment First Florida project and the State Employment Leadership Network. From 2011-2012, he was awarded a Switzer research fellowship from the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research. Funded by this fellowship, he examined the roles that siblings play in supporting employment for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. John earned his PhD in disability studies while working in the Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Aging with Developmental Disabilities at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His dissertation was on the mutual support roles between siblings and people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. John co-founded the Sibling Leadership Network. This network connects brothers and sisters of people with intellectual disabilities, siblings with intellectual disabilities, and professionals interested in policy, services, and research related to siblings and disability. John also co-founded the Massachusetts Sibling Support Network (MSSN) and Supporting Illinois Brothers and Sisters, both statewide advocacy groups. He represents the MSSN in the workgroup "MA21-Implementing a 21st-Century Disability Policy." John also served on the Department of Developmental Services Citizen Advisory Board for Central Middlesex County in Massachusetts.
Phone: 617-287-4369


Phone: 617-287-4369

Follow me on SelectedWorks: https://works.bepress.com/john-kramer/

ORCID iD iconorcid.org/0000-0002-

State of the Science as a Knowledge Translation Strategy

Download full brief here or read on for summary. To synthesize our findings to date, the ThinkWork team at ICI developed 3 draft papers that captured the core themes from our RRTC on Advancing Employment for Individuals with Intellectual and/or Developmental Disabilities (IDD). We asked experts in the field to weigh in on these papers, and then broadly disseminated the papers to multiple audiences.

Support Through Mentorship: Accessible Supervision of Employees with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities

Effective supervision of employees with intellectual or developmental disabilities can be challenging for businesses that may not have experience in hiring people with diverse support requirements. This is largely due to the relatively low participation rates of people with disabilities in the workforce. This is, thankfully, changing as more businesses are seeing the value of diversifying their workforce, which includes hiring people with diverse cognitive abilities like people with intellectual or developmental disabilities.

Families and Employment of People with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities: Results from a Scoping Study

Download the article here. Purpose: Recent policy changes expanding community employment for people with intellectual/developmental disabilities (IDD) and awareness of the important role of family members as facilitators of these opportunities motivated this scoping review of the literature on family engagement with

Beyond Training: Engaging Families in the Transition to Employment

Read the brief here. We conducted an extended search of trainings provided by state agencies and service providers that are targeted towards families. Trainings in the form of written material (handbooks, brochures and computer-based courses) or given in person by service professionals, peers and others have been found to raise expectations that family members with IDD can become employed in their communities.

Engaging Families Effectively: Results From a Forums and Facebook Group Qualitative Research Study

Attendees learned how families have modeled employment and advocated for their children to have early work experiences similar to those of their peers without disabilities. Attendees heard how the service system and families have tried to engage across language barriers and socioeconomic differences.