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Rehabilitation Research & Training Center on State Systems and Employment

From 1999 to 2004, the RRTC studied how states provide employment supports to people with disabilities, with the goal of improving employment outcomes by promoting responsive, effective, and efficient state service delivery systems.

This initiative was funded by the National Institute on Disability Rehabilitation Research. RRTC partners:

• The Institute for Community Inclusion, UMass Boston and Children's Hospital
• The Institute on Community Integration, University of Minnesota
• Center for the Study and Advancement of Disability Policy
• The Washington Business Group on Health
• The New England Council

Research included both disability-specific agencies (e.g., Vocational Rehabilitation, developmental disabilities) and general agencies (e.g., employment and training, the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families and welfare-to-work initiatives). The RRTC took particular note of entities affected by the Workforce Investment Act of 1998, which consolidated approximately 60 federal employment training and workforce development funding streams. Activities also paid attention to Social Security benefits and changes in that system.

Research

The RRTC's research plan had four major strands:

• State profiles via quantitative data analysis (view state data online)
• Case studies of states with strong employment outcomes for people with disabilities
• Individual experiences of consumers who have used state services to find a job
• The National Survey of State Systems, which described the structure of key disability/employment agencies

Training and Technical Assistance

RRTC activities in this area included:

• Policy/research fellowships
• A job development certificate program for disability professionals
• Policy seminars
• Guidance for consumers on using networking techniques to find a job
• Interventions in local areas that focused on improving collaboration between agencies
• Consultation to One-Stop Career Centers on serving customers with disabilities

Project Director: John Butterworth

Project publications

Copyright 1992-2008, Institute for Community Inclusion (ICI). ICI is affiliated with the University of Massachusetts Boston and Children's Hospital Boston. Permission to use, copy, and distribute all documents on this site, in whole or in part, for non-commercial use and without fee, is hereby granted provided that appropriate credit to the Institute for Community Inclusion be included in all copies. Alternate formats are available upon request.

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