Employment Services
The Center for Accessible Living has more than twenty years of experience helping individuals with all types of disabilities, including consumers of the Office for Vocational Rehabilitation and Social Security Beneficiaries find and keep quality careers. The Center can provide job development, job placement, career advancement, and training services, such as job readiness training or job skills training for program participants. The Center can also provide supportive services and assistance for individuals with disabilities in work settings. Staff can help create a professional resume and fine tune interviewing skills.
The bulk of the Center’s employment services are provided through two programs:
The Center for Accessible Living is approved as a Community Rehabilitation Program (CRP) to provide services for the Kentucky Office of Vocational Rehabilitation (KYOVR). As such, the Center can provide Employment and Retention Services, Life Skills Coaching, and Pre-Employment Transition Services (Pre-ETS) for consumers of the KYOVR. To receive these services, individuals must be referred by their vocational rehabilitation services.
The following definitions are used by the Kentucky Office of Vocational Rehabilitation.
Employment and Retention Services refers to services provided to a consumer to achieve a positive employment outcome. These services can include, among other things, job development, job placement, job readiness training, job skills training, resume development, interviewing skills, independent counseling, self-advocacy training, and assistance with accommodations.
Life Skills Coaching is working one-on-one with individuals with severe disabilities to prepare these individuals to function more successfully on the job and in life. The focus will be primarily on the “soft skills,” the lack of which often causes consumers to not obtain or to lose jobs. Life Skills Coaching will exist to serve individuals who need individualized services rather than a traditional work adjustment program. Issues that will be addressed during the coaching will include, but are not limited to: basic social skills such as proper eye contact and proper conversation; how to be involved in the community and why it is important; developing a crisis plan; coping with the disability on the job; interviewing skills to include grooming and hygiene; how to speak properly to a manager; requesting accommodations; requesting time off; addressing a problem on the job; how to properly resign from a job; financial management; and instruction in time management.
Pre-Employment Transition Services (Pre-ETS) are designed to assist students with disabilities in the identification of career interests. Pre-employment transition services are available only to students with disabilities ages 14 to 21. They must be used for the purpose of career exploration and experience. These services include: job exploration counseling, work based learning experiences, counseling on opportunities for enrollment in comprehensive transition or post-secondary educational programs at Institutions of Higher Education (IHE’s), workplace readiness training, and instruction on self-advocacy. The Center’s Pre-ETS services are mainly focused on instruction in self-advocacy through its YES! program. YES! provides Pre-ETS services for KYOVR in a growing number of high schools including 12 high schools in the Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) System and three Bullitt County High Schools.
Additional Resources:
Kentucky Office of Vocational Rehabilitation website
The Center for Accessible Living, in partnership with Independence Place of Kentucky, is an authorized Employment Network under the Ticket-to-Work Program of the Social Security Administration. The Center can provide services to current Social Security Insurance (SSI) or Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits recipients who wish to find employment that will enable them to be financially independent and want to transition off cash benefits. The Center’s EN will provide services in Louisville, Bowling Green, Louisville, and, later, Lexington.
To help you achieve and maintain employment, the Center’s EN staff can provide the following services:
Resume Preparation;
Interviewing Skills;
Internet Access;
Job Seeking;
Skills Training;
Career Development;
Job Leads;
Job Development & Placement;
Access to Employers with an Interest in Hiring People with Disabilities;
Benefits Counseling (through the Center’s WIPA Program);
Other services that could impact an individual’s ability to obtain and maintain employment.
Partnership Plus
As an Employment Network, the Center is involved in the Partnership Plus program with the Kentucky Office of Vocational Rehabilitation (OVR). If you are a ticketholder receiving vocational rehabilitation services and your case will soon be closed with employment at wages at or above Substantial Gainful Activity (SGA), OVR can handoff your ticket to the Center’s EN program and it will continue to support your success in your job. Please discuss this with your vocational rehabilitation counselor before your case is closed.
Employment Network Contact:
The CALIPKY EN can provide services in the Louisville, Bowling Green and Owensboro areas. It is also able to provide services to individuals remotely who do not live in those areas. Please send an email to Louisville Email for more information or call:
Bowling Green: (270) 599-0911
Louisville: (502) 589-6620
Owensboro: (859) 537-5211
Additional Resources:
Social Security Administration (SSA) Website for Ticketholders: choosework.ssa.gov
Current SSA SGA Levels: https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/COLA/sga.html
Disability Benefits 101 – Working with a Disability in Kentucky: https://ky.db101.org/
