New Grants Awarded
for Developing New Tools to Support Employment for People with Disabilities
Below are highlights of some of the various projects set to
begin:
- ES-Coach:
A Smartphone and Web-Based Performance Coaching Application -- Awarded to University of Massachusetts-Boston
($200,000 yearly for a period of three years). The goal of this
project is to build ES-Coach, a performance coaching application that
supports employment specialists to implement established standards of
practice leading to improved employment outcomes of jobseekers with
disabilities. The objectives are to: (1) develop a complete ES-Coach
application that supports employment specialists to reflect on their
work, set goals, and engage in continuous quality improvement; (2)
implement beta testing with 60 employment specialists; and (3) develop
a technology transfer plan.
- Take on
Training: A Video Training App to Foster Independent at Work for
Individuals with Intellectual Disability -- Awarded to Attainment ($575,000 for a period of
two years) for researching and developing a mobile app to provide
direct service workers, including job coaches, with on-demand
instruction by way of short video vignettes to promote the maximum
level of independence for people with disabilities at work. The
objective is to produce a commercially available, mobile,
cross-platform app for job coaches with a complimentary app for
workers with intellectual and developmental disabilities accompanied
by a national network of job coach expertise.
- Virtual
Office Space: Improving Employment Opportunities -- Awarded to Wright State University ($200,000
yearly for a period of three years). The Substance Abuse Resources and Disability Issues
Program in the Boonshoft School of Medicine at Wright State University
will evaluate a fully-integrated, high resolution virtual desktop for
individuals with low vision, which can be accessed online from home or
the workplace. The goals for this project are: 1) perfect the Virtual
Office Space (VOS) to be fully customizable for each individual with
low vision and produce a virtual visual environment that permits
satisfactory perception of information on the computer screen; 2)
iteratively evaluate the acceptability and effectiveness of VOS
technology for participants with albinism; and 3) disseminate the
results of VOS technology testing.
- Person-Centered
Planning Toolkit to Improve Workforce Participation for Individuals
with Cognitive Disabilities -- Awarded to Assistech ($575,000 for a period of
two years), this project addresses the need for increased
opportunities for competitive integrated employment for individuals
with cognitive disabilities by developing and testing the
Person-Centered Planning (PCP) Toolkit. The goal of the project is to
complete development of a prototype application with demonstrated
usability and feasibility based on Phase I results from both
transition students with mild to moderate cognitive disabilities and
trained PCP facilitators. The application enables users to capture the
action item outputs from a PCP meeting, add team members, assign
tasks, track progress, systematically remind participants of
commitments, and monitor completion in ways that clearly identify who
is responsible and when items are completed. A second component is a
community assets mapping function that supports the employment
discovery process by team-sourcing identification of community
businesses, associations, mentors, and professionals who can be resources
in identifying job opportunities.
- Using
Virtual Reality to Improve Job Reentry in Adults with TBI -- Awarded to the Kessler Foundation ($200,000 yearly
for a period of three years). Individuals who have sustained
traumatic brain injury (TBI) have significant difficulty returning to
work. The goal of the current study is to improve the return to work
process by implementing a Virtual Reality Job Interview Training
program to target social competency skills needed for successful job
interviewing.
Within ACL, NIDILRR works to generate new knowledge and promote
its effective use to improve the abilities of individuals with disabilities
to perform activities of their choice in the community; and to expand
society's capacity to provide full opportunities and accommodations for
people with disabilities. NIDILRR conducts its work through grants that
support research and development.
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