Disability Employment Policy Office July 20, 2007 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The U.S. Department of Labor (``DOL'' or ``Department''), Office of Disability Employment Policy (``ODEP''), announces the availability of up to $2.35 million to fund a cooperative agreement to establish a National Technical Assistance and Research Center to Promote Leadership for Increasing Employment and Economic Independence for Adults with Disabilities with a 24-month period of performance. In addition, this initiative may be funded for up to three (3) additional option years depending on performance, identified need, and the availability of future funding. This National Technical Assistance and Research Center will focus on building leadership capacity at the Federal, State, and local levels to increase employment and economic self-sufficiency for adults with disabilities. ODEP is also funding a technical assistance and research center focusing on youth with disabilities through a separate competition. Seventeen years after enactment of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), there is no barrier more challenging to the realization of the American dream for citizens with disabilities than unemployment and its resulting poverty, which precludes meaningful community participation. Multiple demonstrations have documented that people with barriers to employment resulting from a disability can become successfully employed with appropriate supports and the customization of employment responsibilities. With Federal investment of millions of dollars into such research and demonstrations, valuable data and successful practices have emerged. But their findings are not widely disseminated or utilized, and their impact on policy and practice within states is too often not evident. In recognition of this fact, over the last decade, the Federal Government has taken proactive steps to increase employment and otherwise resolve barriers to employment for adults with disabilities. Multiple Executive Orders have been issued focusing on employment and disability (such as Executive Order 13078: Increasing Employment of Adults With Disabilities, 1998), and on increasing the opportunity for individuals with disabilities to become qualified Federal employees (Executive Order 13163, Increasing the Opportunity for Individuals With Disabilities To Be Employed in the Federal Government, 2000). The Federal Government has also required Federal agencies to establish procedures providing reasonable accommodation of work-related disabilities (Executive Order 13164, Requiring Federal Agencies To Establish Procedures To Facilitate the Provision of Reasonable Accommodation, 2000) and to increase community-based alternatives for individuals with disabilities (Executive Order 13217, Community-Based Alternatives for Individuals With Disabilities, 2001). These Executive Orders are in addition to laws prohibiting discrimination in employment under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and Title I of the ADA. Further, the New Freedom Initiative, established in 2001 by President George W. Bush, brought heightened focus to and action in disability policy throughout the Federal sector across numerous areas, including employment. Yet despite these multiple efforts, employment outcomes for adults with disabilities are still far below that of the general adult population. The U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey in 2005 estimated that among the more than 21 million people with disabilities aged 16-64, only 8.5 million, or 37.5 percent, were employed (https:// www.disabilitystatistics.org, downloaded 5/15/07). Of the people with disabilities employed aged 16-64, 49.9 percent of men with disabilities are employed as opposed to 80.9 percent of working-age men without a disability. For women of working age, 34.2 percent of women with disabilities are employed, compared with 68.3 percent of women without disabilities. Not surprisingly, the poverty rate among people with disabilities from 16 to 64 years old was 24.6 percent, almost triple the rate for those without disabilities (9.3 percent). Effectively addressing the complex and significant barriers to employment and economic self-sufficiency faced by adults with disabilities requires the use of multiple strategies and the active involvement of many stakeholders, including Federal, State and local governments, non-governmental organizations, financial institutions, consumers, and employers. To address this situation, ODEP is funding a national technical assistance and research center (the Center) to build capacity within and across both generic and disability-specific service-delivery systems to provide transformational leadership in service to adults with disabilities, and thus increase their employment and economic self-sufficiency. The Center will conduct research, develop and disseminate information, and provide technical assistance and training in five targeted goal areas defined in this solicitation. These goal areas have been identified through six years of ODEP research as critical leadership areas for improving systems capacity to effectively serve adults with disabilities and increase their employment and economic self-sufficiency. These targeted goal areas include the following: 1. Increasing partnership and collaboration among and across generic and disability-specific systems that provide employment or employment-support services. This partnership and collaboration should produce more effective and efficient services through leveraging resources and funding across multiple systems. 2. Increasing use of self-direction in service and integration of funding among and across cross-generic and disability-specific systems, including the blending and braiding of resources and funding across systems and programs, and the use of self-directed accounts providing choice and control to the individual job seeker. 3. Increasing economic self-sufficiency through leveraging relevant generic and disability-specific tax incentives, financial education, social security work incentives, benefits planning, and other strategies for enhancing profitable employment resulting in the ability of people with disabilities to accrue assets and resources through employment. 4. Increasing the use of universal design as the framework for the organization of employment policy and the implementation of employment services. 5. Increasing the use of customized and other forms of flexible work options for individuals with disabilities and others with complex barriers to employment. In addition, the Center will provide rapid response on request to ODEP in areas related to employment and disability, and otherwise support ODEP as requested in its efforts to develop policy recommendations for increasing employment and economic self-sufficiency for adults with disabilities. In meeting each goal area, applicants must provide information on strategies they will undertake for advancing knowledge development and utilization, including describing specific research and technical assistance and training activities. In addition, applicants must describe how they will effectively disseminate policy knowledge, research findings, and successful practices through and within various networks of State and local systems' personnel, particularly leadership personnel, and other relevant stakeholder communities (including, but not limited to consumers, employers, and providers of employment and asset development services). They should also describe how they will encourage and monitor the translation and utilization of such knowledge, research, and successful practices.