Live.WORK.Achieve
A Listserv for the Mississippi Partnerships for Employment
for Youth and Young Adults with Developmental Disabilities
Including Intellectual Disabilities Project
August 2015
Welcome to Live.WORK.Achieve, a monthly e-newsletter targeting anyone interested in and supportive of employment for youth and young adults with intellectual/developmental disabilities. Live.WORK.Achieve is offered through the Institute for Disability Studies in collaboration with the Mississippi Council on Developmental Disabilities and Disability Rights Mississippi and includes resources and information on employment and career development.
Inside this edition:
1) Postsecondary Education Survey
2) LEAD Center Releases Two New Publications
3) Services for Youth with Disabilities Provided Under Title I of the Workforce Investment Act
4) National Skills Coalition Publishes New WIOA Fact Sheet
5) New Report on Guardianship
6) DREAM ON with AUCD
7) Qualifications Do Count in the Accommodation Process
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1) Postsecondary Education Survey
The Mississippi Partnerships for Employment (MSPE) project is conducting a web-based study to access the need for increased number and availability of postsecondary education programs for people with Intellectual Disabilities/Developmental Disabilities (ID/DD). The questionnaire should take approximately 15 minutes to complete. You will not be asked to provide any personal identifiers. Participation in this study is completely voluntary and you may decline to answer any questions that make you uncomfortable and you may withdraw at any time without penalty. All data will be kept strictly anonymous. This study and consent form have been reviewed and approved by The University of Southern Mississippi's Institutional Review Board, which ensures that research projects involving human subjects follow federal regulations. Questions concerning this research should be directed to Dr. Jerry R. Alliston at 601.266.5979. To take the survey, visit https://usmuw.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_09AUKcjsakpWgOV.
2) LEAD Center Releases Two New Publications
The LEAD Center recently released two new publications: The LEAD Center Policy Update – Employment Health Care and Disability and its LEAD On! quarterly publication. The Policy Update features stories on the newly introduced Transition to Independence Act, the Notice of Proposed Rule Making for the ABLE Act, a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis of King v. Burwell, various state updates, upcoming Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) webinars on the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), and more. The quarterly publication contains articles on the next meeting of the Advisory Committee on Increasing Competitive Integrated Employment for Individuals with Disabilities, LEAD presentations at the NAWDP and APSE Conferences, Self-Guided Discovery and Customized Employment, new resources and more. For a copy of the Policy Update, visit http://www.leadcenter.org/resource-center/publication/policy-update-employment-health-care-and-disability-june-30-2015. For a copy of LEAD On!, visit http://www.leadcenter.org/news/newsletters/lead-june-2015.
3) Services for Youth with Disabilities Provided Under Title I of the Workforce Investment Act
The U.S. Department of Labor has released a report, Services for Youth with Disabilities Provided Under Title I of the Workforce Investment Act: Results from a Survey of Local Workforce Investment Boards. This report focuses on the workforce system's current efforts to provide assistance to youth with disabilities at the local level, with data from practitioners to gain insight on what factors are in need of improvement. For a copy of the report, visit http://wdr.doleta.gov/directives/attach/TEN/TEN_32-14.pdf.
4) National Skills Coalition Publishes New WIOA Fact Sheet
The National Skills Coalition recently published a new fact sheet, WIOA and Serving the Hard to Serve. The fact sheet's goal is to clarify provisions of the new Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) to ensure that the standards are interpreted correctly during implementation to avoid unintended impacts on services to the hard-to-serve including ex-offenders, homeless individuals and individuals with limited English proficiency. For a copy of the fact sheet, visit http://www.nationalskillscoalition.org/resources/publications/file/2015-06-WIOA-and-serving-the-hard-to-serve-2.pdf.
5) New Report on Guardianship
TASH recently released a report entitled Guardianship and the Potential of Supported Decision Making with Individuals with Disabilities. The report is based on a completed parent survey that shows full guardianship as the most common recommendation made to parents of children with disabilities and alternatives, such as supported decision-making, as the least common recommendation made. The parent survey was conducted in partnership with the American Civil Liberties Union, Quality Trust for Individuals with Disabilities, and The Arc Michigan. For a copy of the report, visit http://rps.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/06/05/1540796915586189.full.pdf+html.
6) DREAM ON with AUCD
The world needs to hear the voices of grassroots self-advocate and family leaders with disabilities. Their wisdom and advocacy will help advance issues that will make a difference for many. Help the Association of University Centers on Disabilities (AUCD) mobilize and lift up the voices that matter in the disability movement by bringing emerging leaders to Washington, D.C. where they can be part of important events, testify in front of key Congressional committees, and bring their first-person perspectives to national conversations about the lives of people with disabilities. To celebrate AUCD Executive Director Andy Imparato’s 50th birthday, AUCD is working to raise over $10,000 to make this dream come true. Donate to the AUCD DREAM Fund today! For more information, visit http://www.aucd-dream.causevox.com/.
7) Qualifications Do Count in the Accommodation Process
Two recent EEOC cases highlight the importance of employee qualification when negotiating accommodations under Title I of the ADA. As these cases prove, the decision to grant more complex accommodations such as reassignment or telecommuting requires that both the employer and the employee work together to find an accommodation that is reasonable, effective, and congruent with the skills and qualifications of the employee. In EEOC v. United Airlines, 693 F.3d 760 (7th Cir. 2012), the U.S. Court of Appeals 7th circuit ruled that an employee who is qualified does not have to compete for reassignment to a vacant position, in the event that it is requested as a reasonable accommodation. The ruling holds that it is reasonable to reassign employees with disabilities to a position for which they are qualified, even if they are not the most qualified applicant. However, a recent ruling on EEOC v. Ford Motor Co., Case No. 12-2484, 2015 WL 1600305 (6th Cir. Apr. 10, 2015) held that the employer was permitted to deny an employee the opportunity to telecommute, when it was deemed that the employee’s performance was consistently poor and that she could not perform the essential functions of the position by telecommuting. Reasonable accommodations are provided on a case by case basis, and often require critical thinking about very specific circumstances. The issue of the employees’ qualifications are an important factor in those negotiations. This is true of employees with and without disabilities who request accommodations at work, as 95% of accommodation requests come from employees without disabilities. The following resources can assist employers to make effective decisions about complex reasonable accommodations: the Employment and the ADA website http://www.northeastada.org/pages/employment/employers.cfm and Making Work Happen Online Toolkits http://www.makingworkhappen.com/.
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Live.WORK.Achieve is sponsored by the Mississippi Partnerships for Employment (MSPE) for Youth and Young Adults with Developmental Disabilities, Including Intellectual Disabilities project. MSPE is funded by the Administration on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and is managed by the Mississippi Council on Developmental Disabilities (MS CDD), Disability Rights Mississippi (DRMS) and The University of Southern Mississippi Institute for Disability Studies (IDS).
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