NYS Consortium for Advancing and Supporting Employment (NYS CASE)
Overview
The New York State Consortium for Advancing and Supporting Employment (NYS CASE) provides free professional development, training, and technical assistance to employment service providers with a current contract with the New York State Education Department (NYSED), Office of Adult Career and Continuing Educational Services - Vocational Rehabilitation (ACCESS-VR). The Yang-Tan Institute, in collaboration with its partners, advances fidelity-based employment policy and practice throughout New York State, which leads to integrated labor force participation by individuals with the most severe disabilities.
NYS CASE has designed and offers five certificates to advance the professional development of practitioners. The certificate tiers are Employment Services Delivery, Advanced Employment Services Practice, Employment Services Administration, Youth Transition Services, and Employer Engagement. Each tier contains required core courses and electives, allowing for a variety of ways to meet tier requirements.
NYS CASE offers tools to assist employment services practitioners in making the most out of their experience. The Benchmark SE tool allows for an in-depth evaluation of their employment services program and identifies areas of strength and areas to develop. The Professional Development Plan tool allows practitioners to create realistic goals along with their supervisors, while identifying and addressing possible barriers that could prevent them from completing their goals.
NYS CASE offers traditional face-to-face learning opportinutes, along with blended and distance-learning coursework. With this variety of learning approaches, learners can not only attach to and cultivate relationships within a community of practice, but also situate their learning within their work context to ensure knowledge translation.
The NYS CASE team has backgrounds in vocational rehabilitation, supported employment, special education, psychology, organizational and human learning, and law.
Project activities
NYS CASE provides effective training for supported employment professionals. The training establishes an important link between the learning environment and their actual work with supported employment recipients. Coursework focuses on supported employment, vocational rehabilitation, workforce development, special education, social insurance policy, and evidence-based practices leading to successful integrated employment outcomes for individuals with the most severe disabilities.
NYS CASE implements a rigorous training agenda to accomplish these ends:
- Support the establishment and monitoring of specific system and practice performance benchmarks
- Situate learning opportunities and communities of practice to maximize knowledge translation into practice
- Build core competencies of supported employment direct line and management personnel
- Grant certificates of tier completion, certificates of attendance, and rehabilitation counselor recertification credits
- Hone and develop practitioner ability to work more effectively with sub-populations that are the most vulnerable and have the greatest impact on state performance (e.g., SSI/DI beneficiaries and transition-aged youth)
- Support supported employment consumers in understanding the impact of earnings on benefits and making informed choices to work at full capacity
- Enhance the service provider network by increasing the caliber and quality of job placements:
- Serve both the service provider network and state system in improving the fidelity of supported employment services provided
- Support the system in learning across agencies and achievement of consistent service delivery standards and quality indicators
Website
Contact information
Gina Oswald
Email: go67@cornell.edu
Funding agencies
Principal investigator
Collaborating partners
Eleversity (a division of Heritage Christian Services), NYS Association of People Supporting Employment First (APSE), NY Alliance for Inclusion and Innovation (NY Alliance)