Skip to main content

Finding Data on Competitive Integrated Employment

Data Note No. 95, 2025

This Data Note discusses the definition of competitive integrated employment (CIE) under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) and its role as a goal for federally funded employment services. It highlights the national shift toward CIE for people with IDD, promoting community participation and self-sufficiency, and provides guidance on identifying valid CIE outcome data.

State Data: The National Report on Employment Services and Outcomes through 2022

Data Note No. 94, 2025

Data Note 94 summarizes the findings from the National Report on Employment Services and Outcomes Through 2022. Overall, the findings suggest that across data sources, people with IDD experience greater levels of unemployment, underemployment, low wages, and poverty compared to those without disabilities and those with non-IDD disabilities. 

Training Support Employment, Inc. Supports Staff Retention through Innovative Hiring and Competitive Compensation

Training Support Employment, Inc. (TSE), a nonprofit service provider in Minnesota, implemented recruitment strategies that leveraged community connections and targeted a wide-range of potential hires. This promising practice describes how hiring practices led TSE to enact a robust staff training and development program that supports a positive work culture, and rewards a job well done to turn new hires into long-term and highly skilled employees. Read the promising practice here.

Addressing Staffing Shortages: Lessons from Advance Opportunities

This promising practice describes how Advance Opportunities, an employment provider in Minnesota, implemented a multi-faceted approach to address a staffing shortage that was made worse by COVID-19 Public Health Emergency. These approaches included investing in a dedicated HR staff member, changing recruitment methods, starting a mentorship program for new staff, creating a friendly work environment, optimizing their workflows to improve efficiency, and providing financial incentives. As a result, Advance was able to recruit and retain talented employment staff.

Rise: A Data-Driven Approach to Hire and Retain Staff

Rise, a Minnesota-based nonprofit, implemented new hiring and retention practices to target potential employees in untapped applicant pools. Rise used internal data to better identify promising job candidates and track employee activities to better allocate pay raises. With the creation of employee metrics, Rise was able to define clear paths for professional development and promotions into higher paying positions while rewarding good results. Learn more!

How Udac Changed its Culture to Support Staff Recruitment and Retention Strategies

This promising practice describes how Udac, a Minnesota-based provider, stopped providing facility-based 14(c) special subminimum wage employment services and moved toward community-based programs that support individuals to work in integrated settings and engage in their communities. During the transformation process, Udac implemented several strategies aimed at hiring and retaining high-quality employees and supporting them to acquire the necessary skills.

Addressing Staffing Shortages in Employment Services: Trillium’s Strategies for Recruitment, Training, and Retention

This promising practice describes how Trillium, an employment provider in Washington State, faced staff shortages and implemented several strategies to address them. These approaches included building relationships with their community, supporting staff professional development, empowering their employees, and offering financial incentives for new hires.

Minnesota Transformation Initiative: The State’s Department of Human Services Supports the Move from Subminimum Wage to Competitive Integrated Employment

This promising practice follows Minnesota’s statewide capacity-building efforts to provide community-based services to people with disabilities since adopting its Employment First policy in 2014.

Pathways Project for Parents of Youth with Down Syndrome

Submitted by julie.reposa on

Welcome to the Pathways Project for parents of youth with Down syndrome. On this page, you can find an overview of our project, our project goals, related resources, and project staff. The Pathways Project is a collaboration of Thinkwork at the Institute for Community Inclusion, Boston Children’s Hospital’s Down Syndrome Program, and the Institute for Human Development, University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Subscribe to