Community Rehabilitation Providers (CRPs) support people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in their communities. Check out the following resources to learn more about how CRPs can structure their organizations to effectively help people with IDD find and keep jobs in their community.
This brief highlights promising practices identified across five community rehabilitation providers (CRPs) in Washington, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. In the past four years, these CRPs have implemented new and creative strategies to overcome staffing shortages. This brief draws findings from in-depth, semi-structured interviews with leaders and staff of the agencies. We present the promising practices these CRPs used as well as suggestions for other service CRPs to replicate these strategies. Read the brief.
This brief describes the findings from a survey developed and implemented by the Association of Persons Supporting Employment (APSE) on how employment and day service providers used remote and virtual supports. Findings from the survey and a set of considerations to improve employment services, policies, and practices based on lessons learned are offered.
Association of People Supporting Employment First (APSE) surveyed providers about their plans to use remote/virtual supports after the Covid-19 pandemic. Most providers stated that they plan to continue after the pandemic ends.
This brief describes a model of employment supports centered around achieving quality job matches based on 5 key elements: building trust, getting to know job seekers, support planning, finding jobs, and support after hire.
The Arc of Westchester benefits from an agency culture that values innovative partnerships. In fact, an agency leader explained that the organization “will work with anybody who is willing to sit and talk.” This collaborative spirit led to a creative endeavor with Mercy College, a four-year school offering degrees in Business, Education, Liberal Arts, Health and Natural Sciences, and Social and Behavioral Sciences. Within Health and Natural Sciences are departments such as nursing, speech therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy, and nutrition.
The ICI/UMass Boston 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:
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. The organizations vary with respect to size, geographic location, and the characteristics of persons receiving supports.
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.
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.