A $600,000 grant was awarded to San Diego Workforce Partnership to provide increased service delivery to individuals with disabilities through their career centers.
The San Diego Workforce Partnership funds job training programs to empower job seekers to meet the current and future workforce needs of employers in San Diego County. The organization is a local workforce development board designated by the City and County of San Diego.
The Department of Labor and the Social Security Administration awarded the $600,000 grant through the Ticket to Work program.
“The goal of the Ticket to Work program is to connect people who are receiving social security or disability funding with employment,” explained Alexander Becker, program manager from San Diego Workforce Partnership. “The Department of Labor wants entities of public employment services to get involved in the Ticket to Work program.”
The grant was announced this October, which is National Disability Employment Awareness Month, a celebration of the contributions of workers with disabilities. The grant will provide funding to implement the Ticket to Work program in San Diego County, a program that San Diego Workforce Partnership didn’t have before.
“This program is going to serve people with disabilities, and we have a few strategies that we are going to do,” Becker added. “One strategy is an integrated resource team; that means that when someone with a disability goes to a job center to be on the Ticket to Work Program, after they enroll in the program and before they get started in any services like job training, they have a meeting, either in person or over the phone, with a number of representatives that work as government services providers with the purpose of helping that Ticket to Work participant establish an employment goal.”
When a Ticket to Work participant establishes an employment goal, the team will discuss what type of services the individual will need and which agency they can access those services from.
“Maybe the applicant has a physical disability. There is a lot more that goes in besides job training and then connecting them to a paid internship or on the job training, although that’s one part of the program,” Becker said. “In addition they may need physical rehabilitation, or some type of service that the employment system can’t handle, so we have to partner with other agencies that can help the individuals meet those needs before they can succeed in a full-time job.”
This program is planned to start in spring 2017.