career pathways for youth with disabilities - transition ... pathways for youth with...transition...

Career Pathways for Youth with Disabilities

IMPAQ International, LLC Career Pathways for Youth with Disabilities

May 2014

Career Pathways for Youth with Disabilities:

Transition from School to Work and Lifelong Learning

Linda Toms Barker, Principal Research Associate, IMPAQ International

For Pac Rim International Conference on Disability and Diversity, May 19, 2014

Introduction

Despite decades of federal and state initiatives focusing on transition from school to work for

students with disabilities, the statistics on education and employment outcomes of youth with

disabilities are truly dismal. For example:

• About 17% of people with disabilities never finish high school and less than half enroll in

college (47%) compared to 63% of

people without disabilities, and only

16% finish college (compared to 30% of

people without disabilities).1

• The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ 2013

data show the employment rate of

persons with disabilities between ages 16 and 84 is only one-third that of persons with no

disabilities. 2

Youth with significant disabilities face significant challenges in seeking education, employment, or

both. Although many government agencies and other service providers have a sincere

commitment to increasing their capacity to serve youth with disabilities and to help them move

past the barriers to education and employment that they face, many challenges remain. These

challenges include a lack of guidance, belief that they face limited career options due to their

disability, or lack the strong academic skills needed to pursue a college education. Historically,

most youth with significant disabilities and their families have faced a choice of either seeking

vocational training or going on to college. However, innovative approaches to defining new career

pathways offer opportunities to focus on vocational skills in the short run, with the option of

upgrading those skills through college education later. These career pathways include the ability to

receive dual high school and college credit for vocational training so that short term certification

programs will “count” towards college as they look to upgrade their skills and advance in their

careers.

New career pathways can play an important role in helping youth with disabilities set attainable

goals and choose options that do not limit future career growth. Unfortunately, many special

1 U.S. Census Bureau. (2008) Disability Employment Tabulation 2008-2010 (3-year ACS data). Disability Employment

Table 6. Disability Status by Educational Attainment from

http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?src=bkmk Downloaded 2/13/14 2 Bureau of Labor Statistics, Economic News Release, Table 1. Employment status of the civilian non-institutional

population by disability status and selected characteristics, 2013 annual averages.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/disabl.t01.htm Accessed May 15, 2014.

People with Disabilities General Population

47% enroll in college 63% enroll in college

16% finish college 30% finish college

27% are employed 71% are employed



May 2014

education, vocational rehabilitation, and disability service agency professionals are unfamiliar with

these programs, and many youth and their families have little or no knowledge of how to access

them.

Brief History of School to Work Transition for Youth with Disabilities

Before the enactment of Public Law 94-142 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in

1975, many individuals lived in state institutions (in 1967 over 200,000 individuals with disabilities

lived in state institutions)3. Many restrictive settings provided only minimal food, clothing, and

shelter. Too often, persons with disabilities, were merely accommodated rather than assessed,

educated, and trained for the job market.

The Education for All Handicapped Children Act 1975 and Individuals with Disabilities Education

Act 1997 (IDEA) have brought about huge changes in education services for youth with disabilities.

Most children with disabilities are now educated in their neighborhood schools in regular

classrooms. Employment rates for youth served under IDEA are twice those of older adults with

similar disabilities who did not have the benefit of IDEA. The percentage of full-time college

freshmen with disabilities has tripled since 19784.

IDEA requires schools to provide services to students with disabilities to support a successful

transition from school to work, continued training or education, and other aspects of community

living. School to work transition, long a key component of educational planning as part of special

education, is becoming a more important component of high school education for all students.

For nearly two decades, the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) has sponsored transition

research, demonstration, and training initiatives that have resulted in a knowledge-base of

essential and promising approaches and strategies for the delivery of transition services for

students with disabilities. Advances and innovations in interagency cooperation, access to

postsecondary education and training, supported employment, transition planning, student and

parental involvement in school and post-school decision making, development of adult living skills,

self-determination and self-advocacy, and the like, are all valued examples of previous and current

efforts.

The federal/state vocational rehabilitation program (VR) has also played an important role in

school-to-work transition for students with disabilities by providing financial assistance for training

and education, counseling and job training to help prepare for employment and life after school,

adult living skills training, information on career choices, and guidance and assistance through the

hiring process.

3 Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Programs, U.S. Department of Education, Thirty-five Years of Progress

in Educating Children With Disabilities Through IDEA, November 2010.

https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/osers/idea35/history/index_pg8.htm, accessed May 15, 2014.

4 Shaw, Stan. College and the Student with Learning Disabilities, Council on Learning Disabilities for Missouri State

University, http://psychology.missouristate.edu/ldc/Attending-College-with-LD.htm. Accessed May 12, 2014.



May 2014

An example of a federally funded transition program that is innovative and showing great promise

for increasing job opportunities is the High School/High Tech program. This is a national network

of state and locally operated transition programs for youth with disabilities that provides youth

with disabilities the opportunity to explore jobs or further education leading to technology-related

careers. The program uses a broad definition of “tech” defined as:

“…tangible objects of the human designed world (e.g., bridges, automobiles, computers,

satellites, medical imaging, devices, drugs, genetically engineered plants) and the systems

of which these objects are a part (e.g., transportation, communications, healthcare, food

production)”

The High School/High Tech program provides:

• Preparatory experiences -- career interest and vocational assessments, information about

careers, income potential, and work-readiness skills including computer skills.

• Connecting activities -- collaborating with other institutions to provide support services and

enrichment (academic tutoring, supportive peer and adult mentor, self-sufficiency issues

like assistive technology, transportation, benefits planning, and health maintenance.)

• Work-based learning -- site visits, job shadowing, internships, entrepreneurial ventures,

and/or actual paid employment activities building up to on-the-job experiences.

• Leadership development -- structured relationships with adult mentors, leadership skills

such as self-advocacy and self-determination, activities that build self-esteem,

interpersonal skills, and teaming.

Despite all of these efforts, individuals

with disabilities still lag behind in

obtaining employment. In fact,

although the decline in recent years

can be attributed to some extent to the

recession of 2008, there has actually

been an overall downward trend since

the late 1980’s.5

One reason for this struggle has been

that most individuals with significant

disabilities lack the specific skills and

education that many employers are

looking for. Unless the system that

prepares our youth for transition to work or further education can provide the kinds of training

and early work experiences needed to fill high growth jobs, individuals with disabilities will

5 Nazarov, Z, Lee, C. G. (2012). Disability Statistics from the Current Population Survey (CPS). Ithaca, NY: Cornell

University Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Disability Demographics and Statistics (StatsRRTC).

Retrieved March 27, 2015 from www.disabilitystatistics.org

Source: Current Population Survey 4



May 2014

continue to miss out on opportunities, youth and families will continue to underestimate the

opportunities available, and rehabilitation programs will continue to experience limited success in

helping their participants achieve and sustain optimal employment outcomes.

Career Pathways Create New Opportunities

Typically, especially for students in special education, a decision is made fairly early in students’

educational careers about whether they will take a vocational or educational path once leaving

school. Education plans and

transition plans typically

make assumptions about

whether student have the

capacity for higher

education and if not, their

goals will focus on school to

work transition that requires

little or no post-secondary

education. Decisions get

made by educators, families

and the youth themselves to

choose a particular path that

creates a trajectory for the

future with limited options

for changing course later.

Career Pathways are a way of blending vocational training, work experience and higher education

to support career growth. At the simplest level, one way to think about a career pathway is –

different levels of education lead to different levels of jobs. Pathways identify different

occupations within the same industry that need different levels of education or job training such

as that shown below:

From the education perspective, career pathways provide post-secondary education and training,

organized as a series of manageable steps, leading to successively higher credentials and

employment opportunities in growing occupations. Each step is designed to prepare individuals for

the next level of employment and education and provide a credential with labor market value.

From the workforce development perspective career pathways provide a framework for linking

Vocational

Education

College

Degree

Unskilled

Labor Apprenticeship,

OJT



May 2014

learning to the skills and knowledge needed for future success and are composed of broad

groupings of career occupations that have common skills and knowledge.

In recent years academic institutions, the business community and the workforce development

system have been working together to go way beyond the linear pathway, to think about the skills

and training needed to support industry growth and ways to build in greater flexibility and more

varied options for individual career growth as well. To support this flexibility, career pathways

development efforts build on three key concepts:

• Bridge Programs – which provide a bridge between school and work by building

foundational skills and work readiness.

• Articulation agreements – which provide portability through cooperation between high

schools, community colleges and universities to recognize and give credit for coursework,

certificates and other types of credentials across institutions

• Stackable and cumulative credentials – so that workers can continue to improve their skills

through lifelong learning.

Although the steps may vary across programs to reflect different target populations, occupations,

and service strategies, a broad overview of the steps are shown in the figure below.6

6 Abt Associates, Improving The Economic Prospects Of Low-Income Individuals Through Career Pathways Programs,

for Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, ACF/DHHS, March 2014.

Source: Innovative Strategies for Increasing Self-Sufficiency (ISIS)



May 2014

The bottom two steps represent so-called “on ramp” and “bridge” programs designed to prepare

low-skilled participants for college-level training and lower-skilled jobs with a career focus. Basic

skill levels differentiating these two levels vary across programs but generally correspond to the

6th-8th grade and 9th-11th grade ranges, respectively.

The next two levels provide college-level training for so-called “middle skills” employment—that is

jobs requiring some college but less than a bachelor’s degree (e.g., an associate’s degree or

shorter certificate). The top level includes interventions promoting completion of bachelors’

degrees and more advanced credentials to support “upper-skilled” jobs.

The career pathways model is designed to allow initial entries, exits, and re-entries at each stage—

depending on skill levels and prior training, employment prospects, and changing personal and

family situations.

Below is an example of a career pathway in the construction industry7. Note the crossing over

between different education/training approaches:

7 North State Building Industry Foundation, http://www.northstatebia.org/building-industry-foundation-nsbif



May 2014

Examples of Career Pathways Resources in the Pacific

Career pathways are not as highly developed throughout the Pacific basin as the examples

provided above. However, throughout the region post-secondary institutions recognize the value

of career and technical education, the benefits of offering high school students the opportunity for

an early start, and the importance of linkages between certification programs and industry

partners.

Hawai‘i

In Hawai‘i students choose a pathway and begin exploring careers in this field starting in 9th grade.

Various courses relevant to each pathway are available as electives. Articulation agreements

provide for dual credit for CTE courses for college credit as well has high school credit. The

Running Start program enables students to get dual credit for community college or university

classes while in high school, even outside of the CTE program. The State of Hawaii offers 6 Career

and Technical Education pathways starting in High School8:

• Arts and Communication

• Business

• Health Services

• Natural Resources

• Industrial and Engineering Technology

• Public and Human Services

Other Locations in the Pacific Basin

The table below provides examples of career pathways initiatives in American Samoa, Guam and

Australia. The table also includes links to resources for further information.

8 http://www.hawaii.edu/cte/pathways



May 2014

Locations Programs Occupations Links

American

Samoa

American

Samoa Career

and Technical

Education

1. Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)

2. Agriculture, Food & Natural Resources

3. Business, Management & Technology

4. Health Science

5. Human Services

6. Arts, Audio/Video Technology and Communication

7. Education and Training

http://www.lmek.com/americansamoa/localr

esources/poi/plans-instruction.html

American

Samoa

Community

College

• Articulation agreements with 6 universities in Hawaii

• Trades and Technology Division offers Apprenticeship

Workforce Development program in:

1. Automotive

2. Electrical

3. Welding

4. AutoCAD (Architectural Drafting)

5. Air Conditioning

6. Computer Literacy.

http://www.amsamoa.edu/tradetech.htm

Guam

Guam

Contractors

Association

Trades

Academy

• Electrical

• Electronic Systems Technician

• HVAC (heating, ventilation & air conditioning)

• Plumbing

• Management

• Welding

• Safety Technology

http://gcatradesacademy.org/

Guam

Community

College Career

and Technical

Education (CTE)

• High school programs (e.g. CNA nurse’s aide)

• Community college programs

• Adult and continuing education

• Short-term specialized industry training

www.guamcc.edu/Pages/Default.aspx



May 2014

Locations Programs Occupations Links

Australia

Australia

Career

Pathways

• Vocational Education and Training (VET) while still in school

• Training Guarantee for SACE (South Australian Certificate of

Education) students

• School-based apprenticeships and traineeships

http://www.skills.sa.gov.au/

North

Australia

Career and

Training

Services

• Business

• Human Resources Management

• Management

• Project Management

• Training and Assessment

• Soft skills including team leadership, time management and

risk management

http://www.nacts.com.au/



May 2014

The career pathways efforts described above provide a starting point for providing a greater range

of options for youth as they plan for transition from school to work, training or further education.

The challenge now is to find ways to ensure that youth with significant disabilities can take full

advantage of these opportunities.

Integrating Youth with Disabilities into Career Pathways

Many community colleges have implemented strong disabled student services programs that offer

a wide range of supports for students with disabilities including communication services (e.g.

interpreters for students who are deaf, readers and materials in alternative formats for students

who are blind), tutoring, note-taking assistance and a wide range of individualized

accommodations to meet students’ academic needs. Unfortunately, in most institutions, these

tend to be primarily targeted to students enrolled in traditional academic courses of study, but

may rarely be utilized to provide access to career and technical training programs. There are a

number of strategies that might be considered for moving towards increasing the integration of

youth with disabilities into career pathways:

• Build on current on-campus services for disabled students to expand supports for youth

with disabilities who participate in career and technical training programs as well as those

in academic disciplines.

• Educate special education personnel, vocational rehabilitation counselors, families and

advocates about career pathways to increase their awareness of the full range of

opportunities. Planning for career pathways can begin as early as middle school.

• Increase awareness among post-secondary education and training institutions of the

potential of youth with significant disabilities to enter the mainstream workforce and the

current state-of-the-art in employment strategies providing disability-related supports such

as supported employment and customized employment,

• Implement research and demonstration efforts to develop evidence-based strategies for

integrating supported employment and customized employment models into career

pathways.

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