Local Employment Collaborative Teams (LECTs)
Project Overviews
East Bay Innovations in San Leandro, is an innovative service provider project. With its strong network of partnerships – the Alameda County Developmental Disabilities Planning and Advisory Council, Alameda County Health Care Services Agency (HCSA), County of Alameda, College of Alameda’s College to Career (C2C) program, Department of Rehabilitation (DOR), Kaiser Permanente, Oakland Children’s Hospital, Oakland Unified School District (OUSD), Regional Center of the East Bay (RCEB), and World Institute on Disabilities (WID) – East Bay Innovations achieves comparatively high employment outcomes. It is a model in both job retention and integrated competitive employment.
TEAM: Tom Heinz (lead), Lori Kostanas, Cathy Nielsen, Linda Ratner
Glenn County Office of Education: After seeing youth with disabilities struggle to find work in its rural community and a down market , Glenn County (through its Workability 1 and Youth Employment Services Program) began working with health department personnel to explore provisions to help youth earn their Food Handlers Card. That experience demonstrated that they could enhance the employment options for their youth if they equipped them with state mandated certifications in specific industries. Its Work Safe and Self Advocacy Programhelps youth meet the requirements for a Food Handlers Certificate, and are working on creating a dynamic summer program that allows youth to pursue a range of types of industry certifications such First Aid/ CPR certification, Early Childhood Education, Groomer’s Assistant and Occupational Safety certifications related to housekeeping and custodial services.
TEAM: Tiphanie Lopez (lead), Vicki Shadd
Irvine and Whittier USDs, located in Orange County and the L.A. Basin, have achieved much success in developing robust community partnerships and creating person-centered planning leading to sustainable job placements. The districts’ transition coordinators are collaborating in creating a handbook on high impact transition practices, such as identifying local funding streams & braiding opportunities, developing local interagency agreements that support integrated competitive employment, securing training sites that are amenable to employment of same trainees, utilizing technology in the job development process, and interviewing with the help of a picture resume or video resume on an i-pad.
IRVINE: Linda O'Neal (lead)
WHITTIER: Richard Rosenberg (lead)
Sweetwater Union High School District is addressing limited competitive wages for its ethnically diverse youth with developmental and/or intellectual disabilities by partnering with the San Diego Regional Center, Employment & Community Options—a service provider that offers job development services, San Diego State University, the Department of Rehabilitation, and a South County SELPA parent support group for transition students. Together, this team is building capacity to provide vocational assessments, job development, job placement, and parent education to demonstrate how community collaboration can address existing resource shortfalls and help youth and young with ID/DD find integrated employment.
TEAM: John Filley (lead), Rosanna Santos, Reyna Zuniga
Taft College, through its Transition to Independent Living (TIL)program, is demonstrating how a residential postsecondary education program for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities can result in successful outcomes. They concentrate on improving services for students with ID/DD in two ways: (1) by significantly increasing parental involvement relative to locating and placing students in competitive integrated employment; and (2) by exploring strategies to significantly decrease the amount of time it takes for students to acquire competitive integrated employment after graduation while involving students in volunteer or additional internships programs while await their California Department of Rehabilitation Services case files to be opened.
TEAM: Jeff Ross (lead), Susan Wells, John Dodson
TransCen and its programs WorkLink and AimHIRE provide employment support services for individuals with multiple disabilities who have limited or unsuccessful work histories in the San Francisco area. It has pioneered hybrid strategies that braid multiple funding sources and eliminate the forced choice that many individuals and families must make between “day services” and “supported employment services.” Their hybrid model gives families and individuals flexibility to pursue employment while still receiving support during hours they are not working or periods of unemployment.
CONTACT: Sara Murphy (lead)
