Julie Reposa Agency Profiles

Brick by brick: Building a talent pipeline through work-based learning for students with disabilities

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New laws are making it easier for vocational rehabilitation (or VR) departments to strengthen local partnerships with Florida school districts. These partnerships support high students with disabilities to transition to employment after postsecondary education.

One way that students can access VR’s services before completing school is through a work-based learning experience (WBLE). While participating in a WBLE, students spend their time in a real work environment, taking on workplace responsibilities, acquiring skills, and gaining insight into their own work interests and the requirements of careers. A WBLE also requires that students take an active part in the program, learning new skills and evaluating themselves on their progress. WBLEs are open to students with disabilities ages 14 to 21 who are still in school. Continue reading “Brick by brick: Building a talent pipeline through work-based learning for students with disabilities” →

Employment First Florida Staff Agency Profiles

Division of Blind Services: Employment Placement Specialists and Counselors Meeting Regularly to Improve Employment Services

Each person served by Florida’s Division of Blind Services (DBS) works with a counselor to determine how much assistance the individual needs, and which supports and services are best for their life. Counselors have helped many DBS clients adapt to living with blindness or visual impairment and regain confidence in their abilities.

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admin Agency Profiles

Enrique & Meridian Behavioral Health Care, Inc.

Enrique is a certified recovery peer specialist (CRPS) at Meridian Behavioral Health Care, Inc. Meridian is a private nonprofit organization that provides a variety of treatment and service options catering to a wide range of mental health and substance use disorders. They provide crisis, rehabilitation, and outpatient services.

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Employment First Florida Staff Agency Profiles

Broward Behavioral Health Coalition: Raising the employment rate for people with mental health challenges

Individuals with a mental health or substance abuse diagnosis often struggle to obtain and maintain employment. Florida, like most states, has a high unemployment rate for people with mental illness. State agencies in Florida are working together to address this problem through state and local-level agency partnerships. The Broward Behavioral Health Coalition (BBHC) is working with state and local partners at the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) under the Department of Education, and the Department of Children and Families (DCF) Substance Abuse and Mental Health (SAMH) office. Continue reading “Broward Behavioral Health Coalition: Raising the employment rate for people with mental health challenges” →

Employment First Florida Staff Agency Profiles

Nassau County Schools & the Council on Aging: Supporting Independent Travel to Work

Travel to work is one of the most challenging barriers faced by Floridians with disabilities. To help overcome this obstacle, administrators in the Nassau County public schools are supporting students with significant disabilities to learn the skills they need to travel to their jobs. Collaborative discussions and planning with the local Council on Aging (COA) allowed the administrators to understand the issues, and to put supports in place to help students achieve maximum self-sufficiency in traveling.

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Employment First Florida Staff Agency Profiles

RESPECT of Florida: Supporting Self-Employment through Grants

RESPECT of Florida awarding Thaddeus Wilkins a $12,500 Micro-Enterprise Grant

The Florida Association of Rehabilitation Facilities (Florida ARF) is a statewide professional association that serves as a voice for rehabilitation service providers. Florida ARF represents community rehabilitation providers (CRPs) throughout Florida with different levels of engagement with community employment. The association has been a consistent partner in efforts to change public policy and expand community employment.

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Employment First Florida Staff Agency Profiles

AOA: Supporting a local-level network of service organizations and state agencies

The Association of Agencies (AOA) of South Florida began in 2000. The AOA provides a venue for sharing information across local organizations that directly or indirectly support people with disabilities. AOA creates links between its member organizations and identifies ways that they can work together to better serve their clients. Over 80 agencies from Dade, Monroe, and Broward counties engage in the AOA of South Florida.

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Employment First Florida Staff Agency Profiles, FDDC

On-demand job development training from the Collaborative on Discovery and Innovation in Employment (CODIE)

The Florida Center for Inclusive Communities (FCIC) was established at the University of South Florida in 2005 as one of the national network of university centers for excellence in developmental disability across the country. Over the last decade, as Florida has moved toward its recent adoption of an Employment First policy, FCIC has come to play a prominent role as a provider of training and technical assistance in employment. To standardize training on innovative employment models, it offers a resource library and training opportunities designed in collaboration with the Agency for Persons with Disabilities, the Florida Developmental Disabilities Council (FDDC), the Department of Education’s Division of Vocational Rehabilitation, and the Social Security Administration.

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Employment First Florida Staff Agency Profiles

Nassau County: Integrating employment training and communication skills development

The Nassau County public school system offers several opportunities for transition age youth to develop their work skills. Two of these are the Hornet’s Nest Café at Yulee High School and the Transition to Adult Program (TAP). Both the Café and TAP provide an opportunity to deliver functional speech and language instruction to students to support them to meet their communication goals while they are developing on-the-job work experiences. Speech and language practitioners work directly with students on the job to help them learn and practice customer service skills and employment-related vocabulary, and to develop problem-solving language, financial skills, and team work skills.

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