Customized Employment Webcasts

Using Community Action Teams to Create Employment Opportunities

Helping people with disabilities connect to their communities and enter the workforce is enhanced when a team of committed individuals works to develop the social capital of their local communities. The Minnesota Employment Training and Technical Assistance Center and Griffin-Hammis Associates, LLC have begun to create local Community Action Teams (CAT) in Minnesota whose goal it is to organize their communities to support the employment of people with disabilities. In this session you will have the opportunity to learn about the CAT process, hear about their progress and discover how this approach can work in any community, including your own.

Instructor(s): Bob Niemiec and Tammara Geary

Introduction to Discovery, an Individualized Assessment for Adults

The assessment process of Discovery will be introduced as the foundation of career planning. Key to this session will be: structuring the process; how to begin; selecting environments for assessment; use of on-the-job training and work trials; referral to other agencies for assistance; the employment team design; family and consumer roles and responsibilities; creating a sense of urgency; developing a vocational profile. You will also learn about using Discovery to identify “ideal conditions of employment” for a job seeker, and how to link Discovery to job development.

Instructor(s): Cary Griffin

An Introduction to Self-Employment

Self-employment is booming across America with an estimated 20 million Americans owning home-based businesses. The self-employment rate is growing at over 20% annually. Between 1990 and 1994, microenterprise (businesses employing 1 to 5 workers) generated 43% of all new jobs in the United States. This cultural and economic shift of taking individual opportunity, which appears to be largely unaffected by good or bad economic times, presents another promising career option to individuals with significant disabilities. Self-employment is another option under the Customized Employment umbrella of vocational approaches. Business ownership relies on the same basic assumptions and practices too. In this session you will learn how to build self-employment capacity as a funded service working with various entities, such as university programs and state disability agencies, DD Councils, Mental Health Authorities, Vocational Rehabilitation, Workforce Investment Programs and community rehabilitation providers.

Instructor(s): Cary Griffin

Communities in Action: A Report from the MNTAT Community Action Teams

In this session you will hear about the progress of the MNTAT Community Action Teams (CATs). The teams have been in operation since January of 2010. Learn about the particular issues faced by each of the teams, how they dealt with them, and what they have accomplished. They will each share stories of the employment situations they have been able to help people with disabilities discover in their communities.

Instructor(s): Bob Niemiec and Cary Griffin