Charles River Industries
59 E. Militia Heights Road | Needham, MA 02492
http://www.crarc.org/
Contact: John Randall

Charles River ARC is a non-profit social service agency in Needham, MA. They have been providing advocacy and services to people with disabilities since 1956. Currently, they are providing vocational services to over 120 customers and 250 individuals throughout the agency. Charles River ARC is committed to maximizing direct-hire customized employment opportunities and lessening its dependence on 14c minimum wage work waivers. They are assisting 30 individuals to obtain and maintain direct hire employment within the next two years. They hope to improve vocational services by accomplishing the following objectives, through training and technical assistance provided by T-TAP:

• Improve the organizational capacity to develop business relationships, especially among front line staff, through internal and external training.
• Develop staffing patterns designed to maximize the time case managers spend developing individualized employment opportunities.
• Develop community placements in economic sectors not previously tapped by their agency.
• Create job opportunities for customers with significant challenges.

Hi Hope was founded forty years ago by Gwinnett County parents to teach children with mental retardation. Today Hi Hope Service Center provides a variety of services to adults with developmental disabilities, including the Community Employment Program. This program provides assistance in choosing, obtaining and succeeding in a paid employment position within the community. The agency's mission is to provide comprehensive quality services to adults with mental retardation that builds self-esteem and a sense of accomplishment through a variety of individual choices. Hi Hope is committed to meeting the changing needs of the community. In the next two years, Hi-Hope has targeted a minimum of ten individuals for movement from DOL 14c Sub Minimum Wage participation to community employment. The technical assistance provided by T-TAP is intended to help Hi Hope accomplish the following objectives:

• Eliminate barriers to community employment by educating staff, consumers, families and the community at large about its benefits.
• Develop a comprehensive training program for community employment staff.
• Establish successful methods for job development.
• Explore other sources of funding.

Home of Hope, Inc.
P.O. Box 903 | Vinita, Oklahoma 74301
http://www.homeofhope.com
Contact: Julie Grigsba

Home of Hope, Inc. is a private, non-profit company that was established in 1968 by three women who had a dream that their adult children would benefit most from an environment that promoted choices, independence and a meaningful way of life. This dream brought into being an organization called Home of Hope, Inc., which is now a broad-based, community residential and vocational organization. Home of Hope, Inc. now supports 250 people across 3,306 square miles in five Northeastern counties of Oklahoma.

Home of Hope, Inc. is developing a strategic plan to improve competitive employment outcomes and create a culture of customized employment with our current and future business partners in the surrounding area. Our goals will be achieved through educating our staff and the business world around them. We will develop a financial plan and transitional budget detailing the process of redirecting funds from vocational settings to customized employment. With the assistance of T-TAP, Home of Hope will:

• Develop an action plan to move people into customized employment.
• Develop and implement a marketing strategy targeted at current and potential business partners.
• Construct a “road map” of finances and resources needed during the transition to customized employment.
• Develop and deliver training to employees, focusing on change, maximizing resources, job development, individual job matches, customer satisfaction, and natural supports.
• Create a culture of customized employment for persons with disabilities for all employment staff within the organization.
• Create efficiencies by pooling the combined resources of employees and budgets working in different programs.

Humboldt Community Access & Resource Center - Baybridge Employment & Work Services
PO Box 2010 | Eureka, CA 95502
http://www.hcar.us
Contact: Pamela Slinker

Humboldt Community Access and Resource Center (HCAR) is a private nonprofit agency in Eureka, CA, incorporated in 1955 by parents seeking an alternative to institutionalization for their children with developmental disabilities. Today, HCAR serves local citizens with developmental and other disabilities. HCAR's Baybridge Employment & Work Services assist adults with disabilities to secure jobs in integrated settings and to develop and use skills that facilitate valued lifestyles involving choice, self-determination, social integration, mutually-beneficial interdependence and productivity. Baybridge is planning to expand employment opportunities as an alternative to traditional supports offered to the individuals with disabilities it serves under the DOL 14c waiver. Over the next two years, 20 individuals currently served through use of the DOL 14c sub-minimum wage waiver will move into competitive employment. The technical assistance provided by T-TAP will help the organization achieve the following objectives:

• Improve assessment and job development processes in order to make high quality job matches that are successful for individuals as well as the employers.
• Provide training and staff development that will give staff the necessary skills to develop competitive employment opportunities for consumers.
• Learn how to assist people with disabilities to start, own and be successful with their own businesses based on their interests and desires.
• Develop an effective marketing plan to change the image of Baybridge Employment & Work Services from a social service agency to an employment agency.
• Develop and implement public relations material to market job seekers to the business community.
• Expand the organization’s contacts with business community and develop a Business Advisory Council.
• Develop and implement a plan to involve all staff in marketing and public relations.

Since its inception in 1973, the vision of Magic Valley Rehabilitation Services, Inc. has been to assist people with disabilities to learn job skills and become employed. Current programs and services offer people in South Central Idaho with differing abilities the skills to work to their full capacity and to live as independently as possible. The State of Idaho transferred the administration and funding for center-based training/employment and supported employment maintenance programs to the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation on July 1, 2004. Individuals in the Governor's office who initiated the program transfer consistently communicated more people will be served in the community. Anticipating the transfer and understanding the expectations of the Governor's office, MVRS sought technical assistance provided by T-TAP to:

• Provide training to center-based staff.
• Work with the state vocational agency to ensure the successful movement of participants from facility based workshop to competitive employment.
• Provide training to Employment Services Specialists to better prepare them to create unique job opportunities for individuals supported by Magic Valley.
• Explore the potential for self-employment of participants.
• Reduce the number of participants receiving center-based services.