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Maine's CHOICES CEO Project

Priority #4: Improve Vocational Rehabilitation Services

Vocational rehabilitation services help people with disabilities prepare for, achieve and retain employment.

There are several interconnected vocational rehabilitation systems serving Maine residents:

• Twenty-two Career Centers provide job supports for all Mainers, including those with disabilities.
• Maine's Bureau of Rehabilitation Services provides training and job help for people with more severe disabilities.
• And, the Department of Health and Human Services offers rehabilitation services for specific groups, such as people with developmental disabilities and people with mental illness.

Who's Involved

There are many key partners working together on this priority area:

• The Commission on Disability and Employment and the Maine Jobs Council are developing a supportive policy context for change.
• The Department of Labor — specifically, the Bureau of Employment Services and the Bureau of Rehabilitative Services — oversees most services for people with disabilities and has committed to making improvements.

The CHOICES CEO project is continuing to provide research support to these partners, particularly in response to issues raised by the 2006 needs assessment. We are also working collaboratively with other advocacy groups, such as the State Rehabilitation Council, on supported employment issues.

Current Activities

• Conduct further inquiry into issues identified by the 2006 Comprehensive Needs Assessment so as to better understand the nature of the problems experienced by applicants to, and recipients of, vocational rehabilitation services.
• Continue to develop and improve the Maine Resources for Employment and Disability (RED) List by collecting answers from a survey sent to providers and creating a searchable web format for the List. The RED List will be useful to help people with disabilities identify the best service provider for their needs. Go here for the current version.
• Develop a chartbook about the employment supports provided to Mainers with disabilities. A chartbook is a document that explains complex issues with plain language, graphs and other visuals. The chartbook will be helpful to those who want to better understand the complex vocational rehabilitation system and seek ways to improve it.
• Partnering with the Department of Heath and Human Services to improve Employment Opportunities for People with Developmental Disabilities. More information on these efforts is available in a new web site here. Also, a report related to this effort is available in MS Word and PDF formats.
• Research ways other states have successfully delivered services and resolved similar problems.
• Service improvements — such as implementing changes to the Ticket to Work program and fostering coordination of the benefits planning system — are initiated by state agencies and other service providers working together.

Goals

• Service systems other than vocational rehabilitation are helping more people with disabilities.
• People spend less time waiting to receive vocational rehabilitation services.
• There is a better understanding of actual employment outcomes for people with disabilities in all employment support service systems.
• Hours worked by, and wages paid to, Maine residents with disabilities are increased.

CHOICES CEO activities are staffed out of the Muskie School of Public Service at the University of Southern Maine. This web site is part of the CHOICES CEO project, funded by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services through a grant to Maine's Department of Health and Human Services (grant #1QACMS030316). Views expressed do not represent official policy of the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, or the University of Southern Maine.