Project Description:
In June 2009, the Nevada Center for Excellence in Disability (NCED) received a grant from the Governor's Council on Developmental Disabilities to hold an Employment Policy Summit in Nevada. After 10 months of collaborative planning, in May-June 2010, three Summits were held in Reno/Sparks, Las Vegas, and Elko, Nevada. The mission of the Summits was to: Support Individuals with developmental disabilities by facilitating employment and independence through informed choice.
The Employment Needs Assessment, funded by the Medicaid Infrastructure Grant in 2008 identified significant deficits in interagency collaboration, amongst other areas. The State Employment Leadership Network (SELN) corroborated these findings, along with seven other areas where Nevada could improve efforts to increase integrated employment of persons with developmental disabilities. These findings are in the 2008 SELN Report. Quite frankly, many agencies, programs and people were working in silos and showed very little collaborative efforts resulting in duplicity of services, redundancies, and gaps in service. We used these reports to establish a need for an Employment Policy Summit, where we could bring agencies and people together to make a more efficient system.
There were several goals and objectives, with the most important increasing collaboration across agencies. As we had planned, the most notable outcome was extensive community collaboration across several agencies. Where programs and their personnel once worked in silos, practices changed to partnerships and cooperation. Facility-based programs partnered with community-based programs, government agencies with private, and efficiency became the goal. Three Summits (i.e., Elko, Reno/Sparks, and Las Vegas) generated several outcome statements, and teams of eight persons to complete the work plans.
Respectful relationships helped develop the data collection process. Through a ?thin-slicing? model, summit participants are given 30 minutes to identify the focus areas for improvement and specific action steps; facilitators organized comments into themes. Participants then voted on which theme they felt were a priority, generating a frequency tally of priority areas. Examples of the themes are: A. Review, define, and revise funding to support employment options for people with disabilities; B. Engage individuals with disabilities in career development experiences at a younger age. Participants were able to choose a particular topic where they wanted to dedicate their time, and groups of at least eight persons designed the work plan. There were many agencies sitting at the table, some of which including: Vocational Rehabilitation, Developmental Services, Medicaid, the State Employment Leadership Network (SELN), mental health, Nevada Department of Education, public transportation, legislative representation, consumer advocacy, and many others.
The most unusual feature in this project is the fact that polarized philosophical positions (facility-based vs. community based) were sitting at the table talking about how to provide more employment options for Nevadans with developmental disabilities. Also, the use of a ?thin slicing? model where participants have a mere 30 minutes to identify the areas of concern and steps needed to improve the system is unique to Employment Policy and Employment First Summits. The expected benefits include a detailed action plan to increase the employment options for Nevadans with disabilities.
Core Function(s):
Performing Technical Assistance and/or Training, Performing Research or Evaluation, Developing & Disseminating Information
Target Audience:
Professionals and Para-Professionals, Family Members/Caregivers, Adults with Disabilities, Legislators/Policy Makers, General Public
Unserved or Under-served Populations:
Geographic Areas, Rural/Remote, Specific Groups
