Government Grants for All

Hispanic Families Can Also Avail Free Money From Government Grants Aimed At Debt Relief Program

Hispanics who are living in the country as legal residents are also given chances of getting free money. This free money is from the federal fund under government grants aimed at debt relief program. Such program is also open to minorities like them. They can also enjoy availing the same free grant’s program like the rest of citizens in the country. Assortment of government programs can be availed by this sector. This, however, varies from state to state. Such grants may be: study grant, free training for mothers, and advance competency training for those teaching at pre-schools. Study grant is one of the popular programs because this allows them to get college education for free. Hispanics mostly belonged to below a poverty line. Hence most families have found it hard to send their children to college. The free study grant program is their chance of doing this. This doesnt mean. However, that every state in the country had this kind of program. So if theres none within the locality, they can also check out other states for such. Besides, relocating prospective grantee is not a problem. A grant of this nature also includes housing, food and book allowances. What a Hispanic student should do is seek assistance from their school guidance counselor. Most of the time, this person knew about government grants aimed at a debt relief program for minorities. The student will probably be given preliminary assessment by the school, such as grades, family background and legality of …
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Tags: Aimed, Also, Avail, Debt, Families, Free, From, Government, Grants, Hispanic, Money, Program, Relief

Government Grants Aimed At Debt Relief – Steps For Grant Application

It seems that almost every individual in the US knows about the government grants aimed at debt relief. Some information provided online and in local info sources can be misleading. There isn’t exactly one solution to debt, and you should be aware of this. Oftentimes, addressing debt problems is a case to case basis, and it will depend on the concerned individual.

Before you apply for a grant, you should first determine if you’re eligible. The grants may be awarded to education or government organizations, non-profit or profit organizations, small businesses, and individuals. There are many grant opportunities offered by the federal government today. You simply have to know the options available to you.

Fees are not required just so you can obtain information about grant application. Visit the official website of the federal government and from there, you can perform your searches. In most cases, grants are awarded once you’re proposal is approved by the concerned agency of the government. You have to make a realistic and very convincing proposal so that you can be awarded.

Some of the grants awarded by the federal government can aid in debts, mortgage, health care, education, small businesses, etc. With so many grants to choose from, you simply have to apply for the right one and make sure you qualify. Get a list of the requirements now and start preparing the necessary documents.

You can monitor the status of your grant application online. With a bit of computer know-how, you can already perform basic searches on these available grants and monitor the status of your application. As long as you can provide a solid proposal to the federal government, you can be awarded a grant. Be creative enough so that you can make a convincing and effective proposal.

Get your government grants aimed at debt relief now. File for a grant application and check out grants.gov, this is the perfect site where you ca obtain the needed information. After that, you can sit back and relax while you wait for the result of the application. Soon, you will be able to ease your debt problems.

Tags: Aimed, Application, Debt, Government, Grant, Grants, Relief, Steps

Government Grants Aimed At Debt Relief – The Personal Grants

The financial needs of individuals vary, and if you need funding, you can apply for government grants aimed at debt relief, specifically for personal grants. The grant money can be used for relieving debt and finance childrens needs. There are times when unexpected financial problems arise and this may be the perfect time to apply for a personal grant. Personal grants vary and it can be stating grants for minority women, minority grants, disability grants, debt assistance programs, transportation assistance grants, senior support assistance grants, and the general living support assistance grants. The amount for the personal grant varies and this will depend on the type of grant that youre applying for. In fact, you can receive around 000 grant money. There are no credit checks involved when you apply for the personal grant but the low income families are usually given priority. The grants can also be used to subsidize childcare, transportation costs, mortgage payments, bill payments, etc. The senior citizens can also apply for the personal grants so that grant money can be used for their physical needs, renovation expenses, property tax, and other financial worries. Some Americans usually have great jobs, but they are suffering from huge debts. If youre in the same situation, you can rely on the personal grant to get you out of debt. You can use the grant money to settle some debts, and hopefully you can make your life better. The grant money can help in securing your …

Tags: Aimed, Debt, Government, Grants, Personal, Relief

Government Grants Aimed At Debt Relief – The Medical Grants

What will you do with your money if you’re not even well? The health of every individual is very important. The medical costs continue to rise year after year. The solution is the government grants aimed at debt relief.

Because of this, most people would rather stay at home when they don’t feel good and hesitate to visit a doctor. This should not be the case as the person might suffer from more complicated health conditions. The government is giving a lot of importance to the health of the people and so medical grants are now being offered.

Medical grants vary and this includes cash disability benefits, medical research grants and scholarships, childcare financial assistance, health care financing grant, Medicare grant programs, employment support programs, medical bill payment assistance, and the disability insurance program. As you can see, the program can address different medical situations and problems. Apply for the right one so that your grant application can be considered.

Since the grants are usually awarded to a person once a year, it wouldn’t be able to cover the extensive and long term medical care. There are now assistance services that can subsidize the medical costs as well as the health insurance costs. Medicare and Medicaid are especially designed for families and their children.

Disabled persons are given a chance to regain their normal life through the disability benefits and insurance programs. Since the transition period can be hard, the medical grant can be used to cover all expenses until the disabled has returned to the work environment. Don’t let your condition hinder you from returning to your normal life because the government can help you.

For people who are currently conducting researches and studies, they can apply for the medical research and scholarships. The government needs young and smart minds that can provide valuable information to the medical industry. You can apply for this type of grant so that you can carry on with your researches.

The medical grants can reach as high as 0,000 depending on the type of grant that you applied for. The family’s health is very important so you need to act now. Apply for the medical grant through the government grants aimed at debt relief.

Tags: Aimed, Debt, Government, Grants, Medical, Relief

Obama’s Scholarship for Mothers Program – $10,000 Grants Aimed to Educate Single Mothers

Earning at minimum wage is what makes this opportunity even much more amenable to apply. The Scholarship for Mothers Program based from the Obama’s Stimulus package had just released $10, 000 scholarship grants for mothers who work solely for their children. Getting back to school is not a problem anymore; the grant will help you keep your dreams come true. Obama did a great job in helping poor moms to be educated without compromising their family.

In today’s generation, finding the best lucrative work is simply not that comfortable. And being a single mother is a hard task, specifically without having a decent job to aid her children. Most people having been to college determined it to be difficult to look for a suitable career. However, due to recession, this job hunting endeavor turns out to be a nightmare.

A single mom without a degree has been fetched down by these circumstances and discovering a job without an academic title is too difficult for them. This made them tired and depleted, so they might be as well multi-tasked to fill up monetary needs.

To aid this situation, the government has launched the Scholarship for Mothers Program to help financially desired mothers in their learning as well as to help them pay their bills. With this $10,000 cash, mothers can now go back to university and finished their education. Other moms who haven’t gone to college but have graduated from high school will be able to pursue their dream course with the Obama’s Scholarship grants. Though busy moms are still after of their present jobs, getting back are easy, as the government advocates online classes to be conducted during a free time.

What you should do by now is get a copy of FAFSA form and fill in.

Renew your scholarship status and continue your education. For single mothers who haven’t been to college, it is now your time to pick a degree you always wanted. Having graduated from a college means you don’t need to work at an extra mile to pay your bills. Your family’s future will not be compromised anymore.

**Update**

Did you know you can get a $10,000 scholarship for Moms just for registering? Apply right now for free at: Scholarships for Moms

Tags: $10000, Aimed, Educate, Grants, Mothers, Obama's, Program, Scholarship, Single

Labor Day Caps Recent Flurry of Activities Aimed at Improving People With Disabilities

This year’s holiday celebrations cap a recent flurry of summer activities aimed at improving meaningful employment options and outcomes for PwD.

Some signs of encouragement

In July, the nation celebrated the 20 year anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), one of the most significant pieces of civil rights legislation passed in the history of this country. ADA Title II & Title III (accessibility to public transportation and public accommodations) regulations are to be published in a week.

In addition, President Obama signed an Executive Order on July 26 that will help transform the disability employment landscape within the Federal Government. It calls on all Federal departments and agencies to increase the numbers of people with disabilities hired and to improve retention and return-to-work of Federal employees with disabilities. This will hopefully reverse the trend of the last 20 years that has seen a steady decline in Federal employment for people with disabilities. If accomplished, it will achieve stated White House commitments from every administration since the Clinton Presidency towards a goal of having 100,000 Federal workers with disabilities in the government workforce.

People with disabilities are used to an uphill climb while seeking employment

In August, The U.S. Department of Labor announced a solicitation for grant applications for approximately $22 million to fund programs that will improve educational, training and employment opportunities for individuals with disabilities. In her comments regarding the achievement of ” No workers left behind”, Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis said that “To be truly competitive in the global economy, we must leverage and foster the professional skills and talents of every single worker, including the millions of working-age people with disabilities across our country.” The new Disability Employment initiative is a joint project of the Labor Department’s Employment and Training Administration and its Office of Disability Employment Policy. For those who have worked with Federal agencies, intra-agency collaborations are a too rare common sense occurrence.

Funds will be awarded to state workforce agencies, which will collaborate with workforce investment boards and local areas.Grant awards will range from $1.5 to $6 million each to be spent over a three-year period. Cooperative agreements will be used to foster service delivery through the public workforce investment system for job seekers with disabilities.Programs will build upon the Labor Department’s Disability Program Navigator initiative and other model service delivery strategies.

These grants are investments representing “new money” specifically targeted towards people with disabilities and is a positive step forward. They demonstrate a commitment to aligning the department’s goal of helping workers in low-wage jobs, or those out of the labor market, find pathways into the middle class. Improvements in employment services for people with disabilities through these grants will help combat the unacceptably low employment rates experienced by this group. My main concerns are that many states have either eliminated or curtailed their Disability Navigator programs (it is gone in Arizona), so linkage developments through state systems will have to be rebuilt just to ramp up to becoming operational. Also, with an average annual award of $500,000 per grantee and lack of business community commitments/connections, it is not clear as to what metrics will be considered when measuring the success of the initiative.

Another grant opportunity through the Office of Disability Employment Policy which announced in August, approximately $2.3 million to fund up to four cooperative agreements ranging from $500,000 to $625,000 in support of the Add Us In initiative. Add Us In is designed to increase the ability of minority-owned, operated and controlled businesses to employ adults and youth with disabilities. Grant recipients will develop and evaluate replicable models, strategies and policies to ensure that youth and adults with disabilities from diverse communities have access to a broader range of employment and mentoring opportunities. In addition, grantees will form and strengthen connections among targeted businesses, diversity-serving, youth-serving and disability-serving organizations thereby building a national and local network of experts skilled in serving individuals with disabilities from diverse communities. There is a lot riding on the future both of these grant initiatives which are kind of “one shot” propositions.

The bar to meet eligibility requirements is complicated, but also the right kind of formula as it puts together true community-based efforts that link the public and private sectors together around compatible common goals/objectives. The priority requires that consortia applying for the cooperative agreement must have representation from each of the following four organization types: 1) An association of targeted businesses, a business association located in a target population community, targeted business entities, association of targeted businesses, association of targeted business owners or other similar entity; 2) A disability-serving organization; 3) A Local Workforce Investment Board (LWIB) or other organization with demonstrated experience in providing employment and training services and employment-related support services (e.g., One-Stop center); 4) and Youth-serving organization. Once the grantees are announced, it will be critical to track the progress of their efforts to develop national models that are replicable and new data to substantiate the business case for hiring qualified people with disabilities as well as the abilities of the private/public sectors to cross utilize resources effectively. These outcomes will be critical to make the case for either sustained or increased funding.

Bucket of cold water-in-face reality check

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal shares with business readers the results of the government’s first detailed look at disabled workers’ employment. The articles conclusions: the report shows American workers with disabilities are far more likely than the overall work force to be older, working part-time or jobless. A couple of individual examples of otherwise qualified and unemployed professionals were used to illustrate the data from the reports and findings.
The WSJ stated that this is the first time the government has looked closely at the employment situations of such workers.

What are the best measures to establish who is most qualified?

Scott Hamilton’s oft quoted statement”the only disability in life is a bad attitude” -meant to serve as his inspiration in recovering from cancer-sees a reverse twist in many of the reader responses for this article. In brief, the majority of respondents see nothing contradictory or unusual when they say that having disabilities means your career will automatically be limited due to you not being as productive as other workers who do not have disabilities (objection to the term “automatically limits” career potential) . I read comments that believe that this lack of productivity on the part of a PwD is just a natural discrepancy, and high levels of un/underemployment should not be viewed as discrimination (except when you are not even able to get an interview or promotion when disclosing). Other reader’s expressed that having a disability is not a temporary condition, and in these days of high unemployment with other similarly qualified workers available with no disabilities, why should we hire you? (We are a problem because we want “unreasonable considerations” or expect to be hired based on charity). When one writer reminded those expressing this opinion that we are not the disabled, but people with disability, the response was that after businesses being screwed by EEOC on race, gender, etc. the business community will not be forced by PC ideologues to make any more hiring preferences.

Still chasing the dream

These are all arguments and viewpoints expressed before (with greater or lesser degrees of vehemence), and show how much work is still to be done to provide proof that people with disabilities look for the same reasons to be hired as anyone else- they are the best available and most qualified candidates for a job, promotion, or retention. It is getting past the unreasonable bias and barriers of people who have not been convinced to think beyond the meanings of labels we use to create the categories of who is/isn’t a capable employment candidate. Community advocates and employment collaboratives must put out a consistent message that talks about building business confidence through empowering employers with best/next HR practices- not by doing charitable tokenism”favors”. The business leadership roundtables who are experiencing workplace success must redouble their efforts to share that workforce development exemplified in hiring people with disabilities strengthens their double bottom line. It is both the right thing and the smart thing to do

Tags: Activities, Aimed, Caps, Disabilities, Flurry, Improving, Labor, People, Recent

Labor Day Caps Recent Flurry of Activities Aimed at Improving People With Disabilities

This year’s holiday celebrations cap a recent flurry of summer activities aimed at improving meaningful employment options and outcomes for PwD.

Some signs of encouragement

In July, the nation celebrated the 20 year anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), one of the most significant pieces of civil rights legislation passed in the history of this country. ADA Title II & Title III (accessibility to public transportation and public accommodations) regulations are to be published in a week.

In addition, President Obama signed an Executive Order on July 26 that will help transform the disability employment landscape within the Federal Government. It calls on all Federal departments and agencies to increase the numbers of people with disabilities hired and to improve retention and return-to-work of Federal employees with disabilities. This will hopefully reverse the trend of the last 20 years that has seen a steady decline in Federal employment for people with disabilities. If accomplished, it will achieve stated White House commitments from every administration since the Clinton Presidency towards a goal of having 100,000 Federal workers with disabilities in the government workforce.

People with disabilities are used to an uphill climb while seeking employment

In August, The U.S. Department of Labor announced a solicitation for grant applications for approximately $22 million to fund programs that will improve educational, training and employment opportunities for individuals with disabilities. In her comments regarding the achievement of ” No workers left behind”, Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis said that “To be truly competitive in the global economy, we must leverage and foster the professional skills and talents of every single worker, including the millions of working-age people with disabilities across our country.” The new Disability Employment initiative is a joint project of the Labor Department’s Employment and Training Administration and its Office of Disability Employment Policy. For those who have worked with Federal agencies, intra-agency collaborations are a too rare common sense occurrence.

Funds will be awarded to state workforce agencies, which will collaborate with workforce investment boards and local areas.Grant awards will range from $1.5 to $6 million each to be spent over a three-year period. Cooperative agreements will be used to foster service delivery through the public workforce investment system for job seekers with disabilities.Programs will build upon the Labor Department’s Disability Program Navigator initiative and other model service delivery strategies.

These grants are investments representing “new money” specifically targeted towards people with disabilities and is a positive step forward. They demonstrate a commitment to aligning the department’s goal of helping workers in low-wage jobs, or those out of the labor market, find pathways into the middle class. Improvements in employment services for people with disabilities through these grants will help combat the unacceptably low employment rates experienced by this group. My main concerns are that many states have either eliminated or curtailed their Disability Navigator programs (it is gone in Arizona), so linkage developments through state systems will have to be rebuilt just to ramp up to becoming operational. Also, with an average annual award of $500,000 per grantee and lack of business community commitments/connections, it is not clear as to what metrics will be considered when measuring the success of the initiative.

Another grant opportunity through the Office of Disability Employment Policy which announced in August, approximately $2.3 million to fund up to four cooperative agreements ranging from $500,000 to $625,000 in support of the Add Us In initiative. Add Us In is designed to increase the ability of minority-owned, operated and controlled businesses to employ adults and youth with disabilities. Grant recipients will develop and evaluate replicable models, strategies and policies to ensure that youth and adults with disabilities from diverse communities have access to a broader range of employment and mentoring opportunities. In addition, grantees will form and strengthen connections among targeted businesses, diversity-serving, youth-serving and disability-serving organizations thereby building a national and local network of experts skilled in serving individuals with disabilities from diverse communities. There is a lot riding on the future both of these grant initiatives which are kind of “one shot” propositions.

The bar to meet eligibility requirements is complicated, but also the right kind of formula as it puts together true community-based efforts that link the public and private sectors together around compatible common goals/objectives. The priority requires that consortia applying for the cooperative agreement must have representation from each of the following four organization types: 1) An association of targeted businesses, a business association located in a target population community, targeted business entities, association of targeted businesses, association of targeted business owners or other similar entity; 2) A disability-serving organization; 3) A Local Workforce Investment Board (LWIB) or other organization with demonstrated experience in providing employment and training services and employment-related support services (e.g., One-Stop center); 4) and Youth-serving organization. Once the grantees are announced, it will be critical to track the progress of their efforts to develop national models that are replicable and new data to substantiate the business case for hiring qualified people with disabilities as well as the abilities of the private/public sectors to cross utilize resources effectively. These outcomes will be critical to make the case for either sustained or increased funding.

Bucket of cold water-in-face reality check

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal shares with business readers the results of the government’s first detailed look at disabled workers’ employment. The articles conclusions: the report shows American workers with disabilities are far more likely than the overall work force to be older, working part-time or jobless. A couple of individual examples of otherwise qualified and unemployed professionals were used to illustrate the data from the reports and findings.
The WSJ stated that this is the first time the government has looked closely at the employment situations of such workers.

What are the best measures to establish who is most qualified?

Scott Hamilton’s oft quoted statement”the only disability in life is a bad attitude” -meant to serve as his inspiration in recovering from cancer-sees a reverse twist in many of the reader responses for this article. In brief, the majority of respondents see nothing contradictory or unusual when they say that having disabilities means your career will automatically be limited due to you not being as productive as other workers who do not have disabilities (objection to the term “automatically limits” career potential) . I read comments that believe that this lack of productivity on the part of a PwD is just a natural discrepancy, and high levels of un/underemployment should not be viewed as discrimination (except when you are not even able to get an interview or promotion when disclosing). Other reader’s expressed that having a disability is not a temporary condition, and in these days of high unemployment with other similarly qualified workers available with no disabilities, why should we hire you? (We are a problem because we want “unreasonable considerations” or expect to be hired based on charity). When one writer reminded those expressing this opinion that we are not the disabled, but people with disability, the response was that after businesses being screwed by EEOC on race, gender, etc. the business community will not be forced by PC ideologues to make any more hiring preferences.

Still chasing the dream

These are all arguments and viewpoints expressed before (with greater or lesser degrees of vehemence), and show how much work is still to be done to provide proof that people with disabilities look for the same reasons to be hired as anyone else- they are the best available and most qualified candidates for a job, promotion, or retention. It is getting past the unreasonable bias and barriers of people who have not been convinced to think beyond the meanings of labels we use to create the categories of who is/isn’t a capable employment candidate. Community advocates and employment collaboratives must put out a consistent message that talks about building business confidence through empowering employers with best/next HR practices- not by doing charitable tokenism”favors”. The business leadership roundtables who are experiencing workplace success must redouble their efforts to share that workforce development exemplified in hiring people with disabilities strengthens their double bottom line. It is both the right thing and the smart thing to do

Tags: Activities, Aimed, Caps, Disabilities, Flurry, Improving, Labor, People, Recent

Obama’s Scholarship for Mothers Program – $10,000 Grants Aimed to Educate Single Mothers

Earning at minimum wage is what makes this opportunity even much more amenable to apply. The Scholarship for Mothers Program based from the Obama’s Stimulus package had just released $10, 000 scholarship grants for mothers who work solely for their children. Getting back to school is not a problem anymore; the grant will help you keep your dreams come true. Obama did a great job in helping poor moms to be educated without compromising their family.

In today’s generation, finding the best lucrative work is simply not that comfortable. And being a single mother is a hard task, specifically without having a decent job to aid her children. Most people having been to college determined it to be difficult to look for a suitable career. However, due to recession, this job hunting endeavor turns out to be a nightmare.

A single mom without a degree has been fetched down by these circumstances and discovering a job without an academic title is too difficult for them. This made them tired and depleted, so they might be as well multi-tasked to fill up monetary needs.

To aid this situation, the government has launched the Scholarship for Mothers Program to help financially desired mothers in their learning as well as to help them pay their bills. With this $10,000 cash, mothers can now go back to university and finished their education. Other moms who haven’t gone to college but have graduated from high school will be able to pursue their dream course with the Obama’s Scholarship grants. Though busy moms are still after of their present jobs, getting back are easy, as the government advocates online classes to be conducted during a free time.

What you should do by now is get a copy of FAFSA form and fill in.

Renew your scholarship status and continue your education. For single mothers who haven’t been to college, it is now your time to pick a degree you always wanted. Having graduated from a college means you don’t need to work at an extra mile to pay your bills. Your family’s future will not be compromised anymore.

**Update**

Did you know you can get a $10,000 scholarship for Moms just for registering? Apply right now for free at: Scholarships for Moms

Tags: $10000, Aimed, Educate, Grants, Mothers, Obama's, Program, Scholarship, Single

Labor Day Caps Recent Flurry of Activities Aimed at Improving People With Disabilities

This year’s holiday celebrations cap a recent flurry of summer activities aimed at improving meaningful employment options and outcomes for PwD.

Some signs of encouragement

In July, the nation celebrated the 20 year anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), one of the most significant pieces of civil rights legislation passed in the history of this country. ADA Title II & Title III (accessibility to public transportation and public accommodations) regulations are to be published in a week.

In addition, President Obama signed an Executive Order on July 26 that will help transform the disability employment landscape within the Federal Government. It calls on all Federal departments and agencies to increase the numbers of people with disabilities hired and to improve retention and return-to-work of Federal employees with disabilities. This will hopefully reverse the trend of the last 20 years that has seen a steady decline in Federal employment for people with disabilities. If accomplished, it will achieve stated White House commitments from every administration since the Clinton Presidency towards a goal of having 100,000 Federal workers with disabilities in the government workforce.

People with disabilities are used to an uphill climb while seeking employment

In August, The U.S. Department of Labor announced a solicitation for grant applications for approximately $22 million to fund programs that will improve educational, training and employment opportunities for individuals with disabilities. In her comments regarding the achievement of ” No workers left behind”, Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis said that “To be truly competitive in the global economy, we must leverage and foster the professional skills and talents of every single worker, including the millions of working-age people with disabilities across our country.” The new Disability Employment initiative is a joint project of the Labor Department’s Employment and Training Administration and its Office of Disability Employment Policy. For those who have worked with Federal agencies, intra-agency collaborations are a too rare common sense occurrence.

Funds will be awarded to state workforce agencies, which will collaborate with workforce investment boards and local areas.Grant awards will range from $1.5 to $6 million each to be spent over a three-year period. Cooperative agreements will be used to foster service delivery through the public workforce investment system for job seekers with disabilities.Programs will build upon the Labor Department’s Disability Program Navigator initiative and other model service delivery strategies.

These grants are investments representing “new money” specifically targeted towards people with disabilities and is a positive step forward. They demonstrate a commitment to aligning the department’s goal of helping workers in low-wage jobs, or those out of the labor market, find pathways into the middle class. Improvements in employment services for people with disabilities through these grants will help combat the unacceptably low employment rates experienced by this group. My main concerns are that many states have either eliminated or curtailed their Disability Navigator programs (it is gone in Arizona), so linkage developments through state systems will have to be rebuilt just to ramp up to becoming operational. Also, with an average annual award of $500,000 per grantee and lack of business community commitments/connections, it is not clear as to what metrics will be considered when measuring the success of the initiative.

Another grant opportunity through the Office of Disability Employment Policy which announced in August, approximately $2.3 million to fund up to four cooperative agreements ranging from $500,000 to $625,000 in support of the Add Us In initiative. Add Us In is designed to increase the ability of minority-owned, operated and controlled businesses to employ adults and youth with disabilities. Grant recipients will develop and evaluate replicable models, strategies and policies to ensure that youth and adults with disabilities from diverse communities have access to a broader range of employment and mentoring opportunities. In addition, grantees will form and strengthen connections among targeted businesses, diversity-serving, youth-serving and disability-serving organizations thereby building a national and local network of experts skilled in serving individuals with disabilities from diverse communities. There is a lot riding on the future both of these grant initiatives which are kind of “one shot” propositions.

The bar to meet eligibility requirements is complicated, but also the right kind of formula as it puts together true community-based efforts that link the public and private sectors together around compatible common goals/objectives. The priority requires that consortia applying for the cooperative agreement must have representation from each of the following four organization types: 1) An association of targeted businesses, a business association located in a target population community, targeted business entities, association of targeted businesses, association of targeted business owners or other similar entity; 2) A disability-serving organization; 3) A Local Workforce Investment Board (LWIB) or other organization with demonstrated experience in providing employment and training services and employment-related support services (e.g., One-Stop center); 4) and Youth-serving organization. Once the grantees are announced, it will be critical to track the progress of their efforts to develop national models that are replicable and new data to substantiate the business case for hiring qualified people with disabilities as well as the abilities of the private/public sectors to cross utilize resources effectively. These outcomes will be critical to make the case for either sustained or increased funding.

Bucket of cold water-in-face reality check

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal shares with business readers the results of the government’s first detailed look at disabled workers’ employment. The articles conclusions: the report shows American workers with disabilities are far more likely than the overall work force to be older, working part-time or jobless. A couple of individual examples of otherwise qualified and unemployed professionals were used to illustrate the data from the reports and findings.
The WSJ stated that this is the first time the government has looked closely at the employment situations of such workers.

What are the best measures to establish who is most qualified?

Scott Hamilton’s oft quoted statement”the only disability in life is a bad attitude” -meant to serve as his inspiration in recovering from cancer-sees a reverse twist in many of the reader responses for this article. In brief, the majority of respondents see nothing contradictory or unusual when they say that having disabilities means your career will automatically be limited due to you not being as productive as other workers who do not have disabilities (objection to the term “automatically limits” career potential) . I read comments that believe that this lack of productivity on the part of a PwD is just a natural discrepancy, and high levels of un/underemployment should not be viewed as discrimination (except when you are not even able to get an interview or promotion when disclosing). Other reader’s expressed that having a disability is not a temporary condition, and in these days of high unemployment with other similarly qualified workers available with no disabilities, why should we hire you? (We are a problem because we want “unreasonable considerations” or expect to be hired based on charity). When one writer reminded those expressing this opinion that we are not the disabled, but people with disability, the response was that after businesses being screwed by EEOC on race, gender, etc. the business community will not be forced by PC ideologues to make any more hiring preferences.

Still chasing the dream

These are all arguments and viewpoints expressed before (with greater or lesser degrees of vehemence), and show how much work is still to be done to provide proof that people with disabilities look for the same reasons to be hired as anyone else- they are the best available and most qualified candidates for a job, promotion, or retention. It is getting past the unreasonable bias and barriers of people who have not been convinced to think beyond the meanings of labels we use to create the categories of who is/isn’t a capable employment candidate. Community advocates and employment collaboratives must put out a consistent message that talks about building business confidence through empowering employers with best/next HR practices- not by doing charitable tokenism”favors”. The business leadership roundtables who are experiencing workplace success must redouble their efforts to share that workforce development exemplified in hiring people with disabilities strengthens their double bottom line. It is both the right thing and the smart thing to do

Tags: Activities, Aimed, Caps, Disabilities, Flurry, Improving, Labor, People, Recent

Labor Day Caps Recent Flurry of Activities Aimed at Improving People With Disabilities

This year’s holiday celebrations cap a recent flurry of summer activities aimed at improving meaningful employment options and outcomes for PwD.

Some signs of encouragement

In July, the nation celebrated the 20 year anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), one of the most significant pieces of civil rights legislation passed in the history of this country. ADA Title II & Title III (accessibility to public transportation and public accommodations) regulations are to be published in a week.

In addition, President Obama signed an Executive Order on July 26 that will help transform the disability employment landscape within the Federal Government. It calls on all Federal departments and agencies to increase the numbers of people with disabilities hired and to improve retention and return-to-work of Federal employees with disabilities. This will hopefully reverse the trend of the last 20 years that has seen a steady decline in Federal employment for people with disabilities. If accomplished, it will achieve stated White House commitments from every administration since the Clinton Presidency towards a goal of having 100,000 Federal workers with disabilities in the government workforce.

People with disabilities are used to an uphill climb while seeking employment

In August, The U.S. Department of Labor announced a solicitation for grant applications for approximately $22 million to fund programs that will improve educational, training and employment opportunities for individuals with disabilities. In her comments regarding the achievement of ” No workers left behind”, Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis said that “To be truly competitive in the global economy, we must leverage and foster the professional skills and talents of every single worker, including the millions of working-age people with disabilities across our country.” The new Disability Employment initiative is a joint project of the Labor Department’s Employment and Training Administration and its Office of Disability Employment Policy. For those who have worked with Federal agencies, intra-agency collaborations are a too rare common sense occurrence.

Funds will be awarded to state workforce agencies, which will collaborate with workforce investment boards and local areas.Grant awards will range from $1.5 to $6 million each to be spent over a three-year period. Cooperative agreements will be used to foster service delivery through the public workforce investment system for job seekers with disabilities.Programs will build upon the Labor Department’s Disability Program Navigator initiative and other model service delivery strategies.

These grants are investments representing “new money” specifically targeted towards people with disabilities and is a positive step forward. They demonstrate a commitment to aligning the department’s goal of helping workers in low-wage jobs, or those out of the labor market, find pathways into the middle class. Improvements in employment services for people with disabilities through these grants will help combat the unacceptably low employment rates experienced by this group. My main concerns are that many states have either eliminated or curtailed their Disability Navigator programs (it is gone in Arizona), so linkage developments through state systems will have to be rebuilt just to ramp up to becoming operational. Also, with an average annual award of $500,000 per grantee and lack of business community commitments/connections, it is not clear as to what metrics will be considered when measuring the success of the initiative.

Another grant opportunity through the Office of Disability Employment Policy which announced in August, approximately $2.3 million to fund up to four cooperative agreements ranging from $500,000 to $625,000 in support of the Add Us In initiative. Add Us In is designed to increase the ability of minority-owned, operated and controlled businesses to employ adults and youth with disabilities. Grant recipients will develop and evaluate replicable models, strategies and policies to ensure that youth and adults with disabilities from diverse communities have access to a broader range of employment and mentoring opportunities. In addition, grantees will form and strengthen connections among targeted businesses, diversity-serving, youth-serving and disability-serving organizations thereby building a national and local network of experts skilled in serving individuals with disabilities from diverse communities. There is a lot riding on the future both of these grant initiatives which are kind of “one shot” propositions.

The bar to meet eligibility requirements is complicated, but also the right kind of formula as it puts together true community-based efforts that link the public and private sectors together around compatible common goals/objectives. The priority requires that consortia applying for the cooperative agreement must have representation from each of the following four organization types: 1) An association of targeted businesses, a business association located in a target population community, targeted business entities, association of targeted businesses, association of targeted business owners or other similar entity; 2) A disability-serving organization; 3) A Local Workforce Investment Board (LWIB) or other organization with demonstrated experience in providing employment and training services and employment-related support services (e.g., One-Stop center); 4) and Youth-serving organization. Once the grantees are announced, it will be critical to track the progress of their efforts to develop national models that are replicable and new data to substantiate the business case for hiring qualified people with disabilities as well as the abilities of the private/public sectors to cross utilize resources effectively. These outcomes will be critical to make the case for either sustained or increased funding.

Bucket of cold water-in-face reality check

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal shares with business readers the results of the government’s first detailed look at disabled workers’ employment. The articles conclusions: the report shows American workers with disabilities are far more likely than the overall work force to be older, working part-time or jobless. A couple of individual examples of otherwise qualified and unemployed professionals were used to illustrate the data from the reports and findings.
The WSJ stated that this is the first time the government has looked closely at the employment situations of such workers.

What are the best measures to establish who is most qualified?

Scott Hamilton’s oft quoted statement”the only disability in life is a bad attitude” -meant to serve as his inspiration in recovering from cancer-sees a reverse twist in many of the reader responses for this article. In brief, the majority of respondents see nothing contradictory or unusual when they say that having disabilities means your career will automatically be limited due to you not being as productive as other workers who do not have disabilities (objection to the term “automatically limits” career potential) . I read comments that believe that this lack of productivity on the part of a PwD is just a natural discrepancy, and high levels of un/underemployment should not be viewed as discrimination (except when you are not even able to get an interview or promotion when disclosing). Other reader’s expressed that having a disability is not a temporary condition, and in these days of high unemployment with other similarly qualified workers available with no disabilities, why should we hire you? (We are a problem because we want “unreasonable considerations” or expect to be hired based on charity). When one writer reminded those expressing this opinion that we are not the disabled, but people with disability, the response was that after businesses being screwed by EEOC on race, gender, etc. the business community will not be forced by PC ideologues to make any more hiring preferences.

Still chasing the dream

These are all arguments and viewpoints expressed before (with greater or lesser degrees of vehemence), and show how much work is still to be done to provide proof that people with disabilities look for the same reasons to be hired as anyone else- they are the best available and most qualified candidates for a job, promotion, or retention. It is getting past the unreasonable bias and barriers of people who have not been convinced to think beyond the meanings of labels we use to create the categories of who is/isn’t a capable employment candidate. Community advocates and employment collaboratives must put out a consistent message that talks about building business confidence through empowering employers with best/next HR practices- not by doing charitable tokenism”favors”. The business leadership roundtables who are experiencing workplace success must redouble their efforts to share that workforce development exemplified in hiring people with disabilities strengthens their double bottom line. It is both the right thing and the smart thing to do

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