NCWD Releases Mentoring Guide

Mentoring is recognized as one of the most important strategies for assisting youth in making a positive transition into adulthood. Despite all of the information available on mentoring, very little information exists about mentoring youth with disabilities or about career-focused mentoring of older youth. Paving the Way to Work: A Guide to Career-Focused Mentoring for Youth with Disabilities has been developed by the NCWD/Youth to specifically address the needs of youth with disabilities during their transition from school to work.

This Guide is intended for individuals designing career-focused mentoring programs for youth, including youth with disabilities, who are in the transition phase to adulthood. The Guide includes the following highlights:

• Chapter 1 – An Overview of Career-Focused Mentoring Programs introduces the concept of mentoring, shares relevant findings of what youth need to succeed in the workplace consistent with the Guideposts for Success, and provides information about types of mentoring.
• Chapter 2 – A Developmental Context and the Role of Mentoring identifies developmental issues related to adolescence and young adulthood, and explains how mentoring can assist older youth in achieving developmental competencies.
• Chapter 3 – The Disabilities Context provides an overview of disability-related concepts and information that mentoring programs need in order to effectively serve youth with disabilities.
• Chapter 4 – Mentoring Settings and Approaches provides information about program settings, types of mentoring models, and ways that career-focused mentoring activities can support the achievement of developmental objectives.
• Chapter 5 - Operating Mentoring Programs provides an overview of the nuts and bolts of operating a mentoring program.
• Chapter 6 – Useful Program Evaluation provides an overview of how organizations can evaluate the effectiveness of their mentoring programs..
• Chapter 7 – Marketing a Mentoring Program provides a discussion of how to market mentoring programs to a variety of audiences.

Revised Online Course: At Your ServiceETA Issues New Strategic Plan

The Southeast DBTAC announces the release of the revised and improved online course, "At Your Service: Welcoming Customers with Disabilities".

At Your Service is a free, accessible, self-paced webcourse for people interested in discovering best practices for working with customers who have disabilities.

The course was created as a training tool for Customer Service Representatives employed at the Department of Labor's One-Stop Centers as well as for Navigators in the Disability Program Navigator Initiative. However, anyone interested in learning more about interacting effectively with people who have a variety of disabilities will also benefit from this web course.

The course is available at http://www.wiawebcourse.org/.