RRTC Conceptual Framework


With record high employment statistics for working age adults in America and continued strong economic growth across all business sectors why does the unemployment rate of Americans with disabilities remain unchanged?

The Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Workforce Investment and Employment Policy for Persons with Disabilities will implement a crosscutting research agenda that will increase our knowledge and understanding of the impact of workforce development and employment policy on the health, well being, and economic status of Americans with disabilities. Since the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, at a critical time of on-going major policy reforms regarding education, employment training, welfare, and health care, the Center seeks to analyze both policy barriers and facilitators to employment for working age adults with disabilities.

This RRTC will frame new questions about the relationships between federal and state policy, employment and access to health care, civil rights and effective and meaningful coordination of services and supports of the emerging new workforce development system and outcome-based reimbursement strategies for delivery of employment services and individual choice.

As states plan their strategies to implement the Workforce Investment Act, and create a seamless system of workforce development, what will be the impact of civil rights protections for persons with disabilities? What is the relationship between emerging work incentive policy and services that might be available at one-stop centers? What lessons have we learned about individual choice that can be applied to the provision of care and intensive services? What have we learned from studying employers and business cultures that can be applied to the decision making of workforce investment boards? Can we conceptualize a disability policy framework to analyze state efforts to implement the Workforce Investment Act?

This site will add working papers, new reports and research findings to challenge multiple stakeholders to improve at individual and system levels the opportunities and supports available o enhance the economic status of Americans with disabilities.