Transition Material

PROJECT YES!

The purpose of Youth Employment Solutions - Project YES! - is to increase the competitive employment of Nebraska's SSI, SSDI, and CDB eligible youth in transition. Through systems change, transition stakeholders will:

Although local community team members play a wide variety of roles in the disability services system, the common factor that brings all members to the table is service to transitioning youth with disabilities who receive SSI, SSDI, and/or CDB benefits.

Tools used within the Youth Employment Solutions project are:
  1. the local community team (North Platte, tri-cities, York, and Lincoln)
    1. innovative approaches that are created and tested at the community level may be replicable in other locations throughout Nebraska
  2. a state level team
  3. a group of pilot youth in each community
    1. work with local youth builds improved understanding of the transition to work issues faced by the youth and local stakeholders
    2. work with local youth also provides a vehicle from which to demonstrate the benefits of state and federal work incentive program use for local youth and stakeholders
    3. pilot youth are selected who
      1. live in North Platte, Kearney, Grand Island, Hastings, York, and Lincoln,
      2. are between the ages of 18 and 24,
      3. receive or are eligible for SSI, SSDI, and/or CDB benefits, and
      4. want to work in the community
    4. the desired impacts for selected youth include
      1. obtaining, maintaining, or advancing in employment
      2. accessing post secondary education to prepare for employment
      3. accessing or maintaining health benefits while working (Medicaid, Medicare, employer provided insurance), and
      4. realizing other economic gains (PASS funds, raises, etc)

The awareness training modules delivered each month during the local community team meetings and the facilitation of team dialogue are intended to:

  1. help local stakeholders promote competitive employment, and
  2. increase stakeholder understanding of how Medicaid, personal assistance services, and other work incentive programs can be used to help transitioning youth with disabilities succeed in work.

The December community meetings will focus on further planning of community level strategies. Current planning priorities include:

  1. The North Platte team will bring together existing stakeholders and also Chamber of Commerce and economic development representatives to create a local strategy for increasing the competitive employment of transitioning youth.
  2. The tri-cities team will examine community priorities for change.
  3. The York team will draft the framework for a community based transition retention system in partnership with the Munroe Meyer Institutes' AmeriCorp program.
  4. The Lincoln team will examine community priorities for change.