While federal law allows employers to pay many people with disabilities less than half the national minimum wage, a new five-year, $6.2 million grant is supporting University of Maryland education researchers’ work to create a pipeline to meaningful, fairly compensated jobs.
UMD’s Center for Transition and Career Innovation (CTCI) is partnering with the state of Connecticut on the Connecticut Pathways to Integrated Employment (CTPIE) project, which offers specialized services customized to each person’s interests, skills and needs, said Christy H. Stuart, the center’s director and a research professor in the College of Education.
“Ultimately, the project will help provide all people who desire to work with the opportunity and the means to be successfully employed,” she said.
The center is advising the state on evidence-based practices, supporting the Connecticut-based resource teams that are developing interventions, and training staff at the organizations that will execute the program. For example, CTCI is teaching employment agency staff how to customize job positions to be a good fit for each individual with a disability. CTCI will also evaluate the project and develop a toolkit to help other states that want to engage in similar work.
Connecticut is one of 14 states to receive a Disability Innovation Fund grant from the US Department of Education to transition to a model known as “competitive integrated employment.” In this type of employment, people with disabilities...
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