News and Events
Get a Job: Helping your students find and keep great work
November 6, 2007 in North Haven, CT - PowerPoint presentation
The Connecticut State Education Resource Center (SERC), the Connecticut chapter of APSE (CTAPSE), along with the Postsecondary Education Research Center (PERC) at TransCen, Inc. sponsored a day-long training for transition personnel and job development/job coaching staff from school systems across the state, along with representatives from Community Rehabilitation Programs. Over 70 people attended the training, many coming in teams from their school system.
In this all-day session, Amy Dwyre from PERC/TransCen, Inc. taught strategies to support the whole job development process – from getting to know the student, getting in the door of employers, and supporting the students to keep their jobs. Participants got tips on how to be consultants to employers, as well as become partners with businesses, schools and adult service agencies that support individuals with disabilities. Through the use of business marketing, lingo, and customer service techniques, the number of meaningful career opportunities for our jobseekers AND the number of satisfied businesses that will become repeat clients will increase. Everyone also learned how to approach businesses on their terms, develop agreements and partnerships that are win-win for your jobseekers and employers, negotiate customized employment opportunities, and make their jobs a lot easier and a ton more fun!
Then once students get great paid jobs in the community, participants learned how the job coach can become a direct consultant to both the employer and student by developing and facilitating natural supports in the workplace. Through real-life examples, stories, and case studies, it was shown how a job coach as a skilled “business consultant” can assist a student to become naturally acclimated to a workplace and be successfully independent on a job without being by his or her side every day.
As a follow-along to the full-day training, Ms. Dwyre assigned field work related to job development: Each participant or team will conduct a business tour, develop a task list of potential job duties, and a proposal letter to a business. We will conduct a follow-up conference call to review the field work and share experiences sometime in February. As a result, those who participate in the full day training, field work experience and follow-up conference call can receive CEU’s.