What is a Vocational Rehabilitation Counselor?

Identifying vocational rehabilitation strategic goals is a way to ensure that you and your staff are doing the best possible work for your clients. For example, you need to develop strategies to increase customer participation in post-secondary training. Similarly, if you’re going to improve your ability to monitor and evaluate the performance of your employees, then you should implement strategies for this.

Identify Career Pathways

Career planning helps youth map short- and long-term goals and determine which supports and skills are needed to achieve them. In addition, it facilitates a smooth transition into the workplace.

Several strategies can be used to help youth with disabilities identify the career pathways that are right for them. These include self-awareness, education, support services, and work-based learning.

The federal funding toolkit is a good resource for identifying federal programs that support employment and career pathways. This document includes program profiles, basic information, and eligibility requirements. It also provides links to specific opportunities.

Vocational Rehabilitation is one of the key ways that a person can obtain employment. Additionally, vocational rehabilitation Oregon agencies offer support services, including assistance with independent living expenses, social security benefits planning, and disability-related costs.

Identifying the career pathways that are right for a person is a process that begins during a person’s high school years. Through vocational exploration, a person can learn about different careers, experience them first-hand, and make a more informed decision about their future career.

Increase Customer Participation in Post-secondary Training

DSHS aims to increase customer participation in post-secondary vocational rehabilitation training. Specifically, it’s looking at ways to promote involvement in workforce training programs. To that end, it’s collaborating with Community Rehabilitation Programs to ensure that the most valuable information is pushed to the most qualified individuals. As part of its ongoing outreach efforts, it’s also launching a new statewide training program. Likewise, it’s implementing an integrated case management system to keep customers on track.

Whether it’s training, a new job, or a new lease on life, the department is committed to making the most of the dollars that flow through its doors. Its current portfolio comprises some 200 regional and statewide vocational rehab programs. From job exploration counseling to job placement and beyond, the department’s top-notch staff is dedicated to improving the employment prospects of America’s workforce.

Reduce Poverty in the Disability Community

The American Community Survey shows that working-age adults with disabilities are twice as likely to live in poverty as those without disabilities. Their employment rate is lower, their average wages more down, and they are less likely to have earned a living wage than other working-age Americans.

As with the general population, people with disabilities rely on public programs to address their economic needs. Unfortunately, these programs do little to help individuals lift themselves out of poverty. They reinforce the socially unrealistic expectation that people with disabilities cannot work.

To address poverty among this vulnerable population, policymakers must focus on systemic reforms. These reforms are aimed at promoting self-sufficiency and reducing the likelihood that people with disabilities will be dependent on public benefits.

There is a growing recognition that disability is a critical social issue. Solutions are beginning to emerge as a result. However, more radical reforms are still needed.

One major program for working-age people with disabilities is the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program. Millions of Americans have received cash assistance through this program since its inception. But the monthly benefit amount is only about 75 percent of the federal poverty standard for individuals. In many communities, more is needed to cover housing expenses.