Administrators

The purpose of this area is to provide information for administrators engaged in managing programs and services for youth (ages 14-25). This information will help you to build organizational and system’s capacity. In turn, this increased capacity will support movement beyond a collection of programs and services and towards a workforce development system that supports the successful completion of high school and improved transition outcomes for all youth, including those with disabilities.

Program administrators need to ensure that all staff members are aware of the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to do their jobs, have the opportunity to assess themselves in these areas, and are supported in gaining the necessary knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) to do their jobs. NCWD/Youth’s new hot topic on KSAs will explain more.

Read the new KSAs Jump Start.

Materials developed by NCWD/Youth are organized around what young people need to be successful in the workplace. Evidence-based research shows that all young people need to be exposed to activities in the following four areas:

• Preparatory Experiences are those core activities that help youth become prepared for a successful future in careers or postsecondary education institutions. They include the career interest and vocational assessments, information about careers, income potential, and work-readiness skills.
  
  
• Work-based Learning are supervised programs sponsored by an education or training organization that link knowledge gained at the worksite with a planned program of study. Experiences range in intensity, structure and scope and include activities as diverse as site visits, job shadowing, paid and unpaid internships, structured on-the-job training, and the more formal work status as apprentice or employee.
  
  
• Connecting Activities provide necessary support services for youth and enrich program content. They include academic tutoring, adult and peer mentoring, and helping youth explore self-sufficiency issues like assistive technology, transportation, benefits planning, and health maintenance.
  
  
• Youth Development & Leadership are processes that prepare young people to meet the challenges of adolescence and adulthood through a coordinated, progressive series of activities and experiences. These include providing structured relationships with adults and exposing every youth to personal leadership skills such as self-advocacy and self-determination.

The Basics: Disability Do's and Don'ts

We all need help navigating new territory. You or your staff may have not worked with individuals with disabilities before. These articles provide some simple guidelines to help you interact respectfully with ease and professionalism.

Know The Law:
Policy, Legislation, & Regulations relating to Employment & Youth with Disabilities

Administrators must understand their responsibilities towards youth with disabilities under a variety of state and federal laws. When managing programs and services within and linked to workforce development systems there can be a number of policies, laws and regulations must be considered simultaneously. Administrators need to understand their inter-relationship and insure that all staff knows the implications of relevant laws on their work.

There is a great deal of confusion and misunderstanding regarding federal laws, policies and regulations and how these laws are being implemented at the state and local level. When state and federal laws overlap, the law that offers the most protection applies.
Finally, it is important that all administrators understand that any program or organization that receives federal funds may not:

• Deny a youth with a disability the opportunity to participate in and benefit from programs;
• Provide youth with disabilities the opportunities to participate and benefit that are unequal to those offered their peers;
• Provide youth with disabilities with programs, benefits, or services that are not as effective as those provided their peers;
• Provide youth with disabilities with lower-quality programs than those provided their peers; and
• Provide different or separate programs to youth with disabilities that are as effective as what other youth receive.

NCWD/Youth has created a brief description of the laws relevant to preparing youth with disabilities for the workforce.