National Collaborative on Workforce and Disability for Youth

In late 2001, the Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) in the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) funded two national technical assistance centers designed to assist the workforce development community to overcome the issues affecting the employment of people with disabilities. One of these centers focuses its activities on adults with disabilities and the other on youth with disabilities.

The National Collaborative on Workforce and Disability for Youth (NCWD/Youth) is composed of partners with expertise in disability, education, employment, and workforce development issues. The Collaborative is charged with assisting state and local workforce development systems to integrate youth with disabilities into their service strategies, and it is housed at the Institute for Educational Leadership.

The Collaborative strives to ensure that youth with disabilities are provided full access to high quality services in integrated settings in order to maximize their opportunities for employment and independent living.

Over its five-year life, the Collaborative will offer a range of services to state and local workforce investment boards, youth councils, other workforce system youth programs, and to ODEP grantees. Products and services will include:

• A fully-accessible, content-rich Web site.
• A repository of materials generated by the ODEP grantees.
• A research based framework for evaluating state and local "best practices."
• Specialized support to the DOL's High School/High Tech (HS/HT) and Innovative Demonstration grantees.
• Publications tailored to the needs and concerns of the various workforce development stakeholder groups.
• Capacity-building training materials for use by state and local workforce development organizations.
• An information and resource center accessible to the public and to the workforce development system.
• Development of materials and specialized training designed to improve the capacity of frontline service providers.

The DOL also funded a series of demonstration grants designed to test and build a set of "promising practices models". Seven local organizations were awarded Innovative Demonstration Grants for Youth with Disabilities for testing various models of youth empowerment and employment development.

The DOL also invested in realigning a number of existing High School/High Tech programs with the workforce investment system and starting a handful of new High School/High Tech (HS/HT) programs around the country. The HS/HT Program provides opportunities for students with disabilities to explore careers in science, mathematics and technology. The HS/HT Program is one of several initiatives of the Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP).

Besides IEL, the partners in the Collaborative include:

• Academy for Educational Development, Washington, DC;
• National Center on Secondary Education and Transition,University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN;
• National Conference of State Legislatures, Washington, DC;
• National Youth Employment Coalition, Washington, DC;
• TransCen, Inc., Rockville, MD;
• National Association of Workforce Boards, Washington, DC.

For more information, please contact:

National Collaborative on Workforce and Disability for Youth
E-mail: contact@ncwd-youth.info
877- 871- 0744 (toll-free for general technical assistance questions)
877-871-0665 (TTY toll free)
http://www.ncwd-youth.info/

Staff