Archived Webinars

Lisa Van Ryn and Michelle Barlow will discuss how their agency addressed the need to improve the quality of adult career and continuing education VR services in New York when traditional agency staff training did not produce the desired results. This webinar is part of a series where members of the NIDILRR-funded RTAC project of VR Program Management present the lessons they've learned through their management initiative. The RTAC is a collaborative initiative to identify, test, and disseminate management practices to build a performance management model tailored to the vocational rehabilitation system.

Esther Bennett from the Washington Division of Vocational Rehabilitation will outline the different approaches the agency is taking to cultivate a work culture that promotes recruitment and retention of a diverse and qualified staff. She will discuss how Washington VR recruits staff and creates a work culture that promotes skill development, accountability, and advancement opportunities. This webinar is part of a series where members of the NIDILRR-funded RTAC project of VR Program Management present the lessons they've learned through their management initiative. The RTAC is a collaborative initiative to identify, test, and disseminate management practices to build a performance management model tailored to the vocational rehabilitation system.

The Institute for Community Inclusion (ICI) at the University of Massachusetts Boston hosts the Job Driven Vocational Rehabilitation Technical Assistance Center (JD-VRTAC) funded by the Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA). We will be releasing a request for participation (RFP) for state vocational rehabilitation agencies to participate in intensive technical assistance (TA) on job driven strategies as part of the center. The RFP is open to all 80 VR agencies nationally. The TA will be based upon research-supported and emerging promising practices that have been shown to improve employment outcomes for people with disabilities, both on a state-by-state and a national level.

During the webinar, the speakers provide their rationale for the RFP and give highlights of the technical assistance activities and the RFP process. 

Informational Session on the VR-RRTC on Demand-Side Strategies Study and Learning Collaborative

The Institute for Community Inclusion (ICI) and the Vermont Division of Vocational Rehabilitation (DVR) are pleased to have hosted a webinar, which provided information about Vermont’s Progressive Employment (PE) Model and discussed the opportunity for state VR agencies to engage in a research project aimed at replicating the model using a learning collaborative approach.

This is an interactive web tutorial on using the RSA 911 information contained in StateData.info. The webinar is tailored for state VR agency staff that are involved in planning, evaluation, management and public information. The webinar provides an overview of the StateData.info site and how to navigate through the 911 data.

Visit the ExploreVR Open Data Lab to download raw RSA 911 data sets. 

Bobby Silverstein provides an overview of the OOS policy and analysis he completed of 41 VR programs. There was a discussion of how this material and the resources of the VR-RRTC could be utilized in collaboration with the TACE programs.

Webinar handouts:

• A Description and Analysis of State Policy Frameworks Regarding Order of Selection Under Title I of the Rehabilitation Act (.doc)
• Order of Selection Under the Rehabilitation Act: Lessons Learned from a Study of Federal and State Policy Frameworks (.ppt)

The TACE I and the VR-RRTC at ICI / UMass Boston presented on Vocational Rehabilitation financial strategies for achieving match funding and managing the financial options available to VR. Discussed strategies and approaches to getting match funding to maximize states federal allotment. The focus was on the development and implementation of a strategy to achieve full state match through the budget process.

The TACE I and the VR-RRTC at ICI / UMass Boston presented on Vocational Rehabilitation financial strategies for achieving match funding and managing the financial options available to VR. Presenters discuss developing strategies for managing funds and maximizing the flexibility of VR funds.

Researchers present and discuss the findings of a systematic review of empirical research on the public VR system spanning 1970 to 2008. The review aimed to characterize the public VR program in terms of its programmatic and systematic features, the types of customers served, and the kinds of outcomes achieved as resported in research studies. More broadly, the review aimed to describe the existing VR research base, including gaps in research, and to make recommendations for future research investment. Researchers conducted an extensive literature search and then narrowed the sample to 550 studies that met the review criteria. A structured coding tool was used for data analysis and quality assessment. In addition to the findings, presenters discuss study implications as well as methodological challenges and how these were addressed.