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Champions for Children with Disabilities
PACER Partner, the National Collaborative on Workforce and Disability for Youth, is an excellent resource for further information on transition-related legislation.
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Workforce Investment Act of 1998
- Introduction
- What is a Workforce Center?
- What services are available for people with disabilities?
- How do I use the workforce centers?
- What kinds of services are available for transition-age youth?
- Who are the service providers located within the Workforce Centers?
Introduction
Do you or does someone you know have a disability and want to work? If so, this booklet is for you. Workforce centers can help people develop skills, look for work, keep jobs, or build a career. The Workforce Investment Act of 1998 (WIA) brings together many different federally funded employment and training programs into a more simplified, "user friendly" system for jobseekers. The main goal is to provide all jobseekers easy access to services that will help them find jobs and advance their careers, while also meeting employer workforce needs. People with disabilities will potentially benefit from this overall push for higher quality and easier access to services.
- Streamlining services. Multiple employment and training programs are integrated into one system
- Universal access. Everybody, including people with disabilities, has access to core services.
- Increased accountability. States, local service areas, and training providers are held accountable for performance results.
- Improved youth programs. The act establishes a youth council in each area, and links youth programs more closely to local labor market needs.
- State and local flexibility. States and communities have a great deal of flexibility in how funding is used to customize services to meet local needs.
What is a Workforce Center?
The WIA is a broad overhaul of the U.S. job-training system. It strives to streamline dozens of individual training programs to allow easier access to services, especially for groups who face serious barriers in seeking and gaining employment, such as youths and adults with disabilities.
The centerpiece of the WIA is a system of One-Stop workforce centers designed to provide job training, education, and employment services at a single neighborhood location. A key idea behind workforce centers is that every individual, including people with disabilities, has the right to access basic or "core" services that include:
- skill assessment services
- information on employment and training opportunities
- unemployment services, such as job search and placement assistance and up-to-date information on job vacancies
The services for both jobseekers and employers may differ from center to center based on local needs.
What services are available for people with disabilities?
WIA's core principle of universal access allows people with disabilities to benefit from the same services everyone else has. Receiving services side by side with everyone else promotes the idea that people with disabilities can be fully integrated into the mainstream community. Under WIA, services are to be "generally accessible," meaning that most people with disabilities should be able to use services without having to ask for accommodations. When needed, however, people with disabilities are entitled to reasonable accommodations in order to use WIA services.
WIA emphasizes that general employment and training services can meet the needs of people with disabilities. The legislation and regulations state specifically that workforce centers are designed to serve people with disabilities.
People with disabilities have more choices in the workforce center system than they had in the past. These choices will expand as the workforce centers develop into the program set up by the law. Ideally, all programs should be available to all jobseekers. Currently, those who need rehabilitation services can apply either at the workforce center or directly to the rehabilitation service program located in the workforce center.
How do I use the workforce centers?
The One-Stop system operates through a network of centers in each state. States are required to have at least one comprehensive center physically located in each local service delivery area. Service areas are designated by the governor and based on factors such as population, the local labor market, and the need to provide services within a reasonable travel distance for individuals. Any city or county with a population of 500,000 or more is automatically approved as a local workforce investment area.
All adults 18 and older are eligible for core services, including job search and placement assistance, labor market information, initial assessment of skills and needs, information about available services, and some follow-up services to retain jobs. Intensive services for unemployed people who aren't able to find jobs through core services alone will also be available.
What kinds of service are available for transition-age youth?
Youth activities are provided to low-income youth. To be eligible, low-income youth ages 14-21 must also fit one or more of the following challenges to successful employment:
- high school dropout
- someone with basic literacy skill needs
- homeless, runaway, or foster child
- pregnant mother or a parent
- an offender
- someone who needs help in completing an educational program or securing and holding a job
At least 30 percent of the funds for youth programs must be spent on out-of-school youth. Five percent of funds for youth activities can be used for youth who are not low-income but meet a specific category, such as individuals with disabilities (including learning disabilities). For youth with disabilities, only their own income, not their family's, is considered in determining whether they meet income criteria. Youth who meet the income eligibility criteria for receiving cash payments under any federal, state, or local public assistance program (such as SSI benefits from Social Security) are eligible for youth services.
Required support services for youth include tutoring, study skills training, instruction leading to high school completion (including dropout prevention), alternative school services, adult mentoring, paid and unpaid work experiences (including internships and job shadowing), occupational skills training, leadership development opportunities, follow-up services for not less than 12 months as appropriate, and comprehensive guidance and counseling.
Whether a young person is eligible for services or not, One-Stops can serve as information and referral sources. There is no prohibition against any youth under 18 using the core services of the One-Stop centers. The WIA encourages youth to make use of One-Stop services early in their career development and to use the system as an entry point for obtaining education, training, and job search services.
As a resource for the transition process, One-Stops can:
- assist students with job searches by providing job listings, helping with resume development, teaching interview skills.
- provide information on training and education options in the local area.
- provide information and access to experiential employment activities. Many students, including those with and without disabilities, gain early work experiences through internships, apprenticeships, mentor programs, cooperative education programs, and summer work programs.
- provide instruction on conducting a job search. One-Stop centers have considerable expertise on conducting job searches both locally and nationally.
The state's workforce plan must address how the state will meet the needs of youth with disabilities. Each local workforce investment area must have a youth council to coordinate youth programs and activities that link them to local labor market needs. WIA requires assessments, preparation for postsecondary educational opportunities or unsubsidized employment (as appropriate), links between academic and occupational training, and links to the job market and employers.
Who are the service providers located within the Workforce Centers?
The state vocational rehabilitation (VR) system is one of many mandated partners in the One-Stop system. VR continues to exist as a separate program with its own federal funding source. The other required partners are:
- federally funded Adult, Dislocated Worker, & Youth Activities
- employment service programs under the Wagner-Peyser Act
- federally funded adult education & literacy programs
- federally funded postsecondary vocational education
- federally funded Welfare-to-Work programs
- federally funded Senior Community Service Employment Activities
- Trade Adjustment Assistance and NAFTA Adjustment Assistance
- veterans employment and training programs
- employment and training programs of the federal community services block grant
- Department of Housing and Urban Development employment and training programs
- programs under state unemployment insurance laws
Unlike the department of vocational rehabilitation, none of these other partners fund services only for people with disabilities. However, all provide services that can benefit people with disabilities.
While the VR system is the only disability-focused agency required as a partner in the One-Stop system, additional disability partners could be included. A number of options exist for other disability agencies to collaborate with the workforce investment system and with One-Stop centers. Some programs and services become partners within the workforce center, while others locate their office in or near the same building. Services may include county or city assistant programs or Medicaid and Medicare offices. Some nonprofits may also locate near or work cooperatively with the workforce center program.
As an individual with a disability, you may decide that the program provided through rehabilitation services that serves only people with disabilities is the best for you. Or you may decide that some of the services offered for people with and without disabilities can help you best. In any case, you may use the resource library and the computers with job market information and training materials because these are open to the public. Traditionally, many of these programs have not been accessible to people with disabilities. (For example, they may not have been accessible to a person in a wheelchair, or Braille or large-print resources or sign language interpreters may not have been available.). WIA deals specifically with developing plans to make all programs accessible.
WIA aims to establish a system that not only gives jobseekers easy access to services to help them find a job and advance their careers, but also meets employer needs. It brings together many different federally funded employment and training programs under one roof. People with disabilities will potentially benefit from this overall push for higher quality and easy access to services.
Updated 8/3/2007
PACER's site offers many PDF files for download, which require 
