067. Resource: Vocational Rehabilitative (VR) Agency Locator

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Hosts Meghan (Smallwood) and Patrick (Cadigan), take a few minutes this week to  highlight a resource to locate Rehabilitative Agencies. They emphasize the need for families to research specific states as each has its own eligibility criteria and service offerings; VR agencies typically provide job training, assistive technology, and career counseling. Join the conversation!

Episode Keywords:
vocational rehabilitation, developmental disabilities, job placement, assistive technology, career assessments, counseling services, eligibility criteria, state-specific agencies, resource website, waiting lists, transition process

Links:
Vocational Rehabilitative Agency (page)
State Vocational Rehabilitation Agencies (site)

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To download a copy of a transcript for this episode or any of our previous conversations, click here.
Also visit our Podcast webpage to find links to all of our other discussions; go to www.p2transition.com.
Additional information about post-secondary transition can be found at our website.
The Post-Secondary Transition Podcast Facebook page.
Visit our YouTube Channel to find additional video resources.
Intro/Outro music by AudioCoffee from Pixabay.
Transition music by Joseph McDade from Transistor.

Episode Transcript

Meghan Smallwood (00:00):
Welcome. This is the Post Secondary Transition
podcast, where we haveconversations around the ins and
outs and everything in betweenof the transition process for
families of students withdisabilities. I'm one of the
hosts. My name is MeghanSmallwood, and I am a public
school transition coordinator,and I'm joined with my co-host.

Patrick Cadigan (00:18):
And I'm Patrick Cadigan, and I am also a public
school transition coordinator,and once again, Meghan and I
have found ourselves in ascheduling challenge. Now we're
kind of wrapping up the holidayshere, and we didn't want to
leave you guys with nothing, sowe wanted to share out a
resource that we thought couldbe valuable for families in that

(00:42):
research process. Meghan, youwant to talk about it?

Meghan Smallwood (00:45):
Absolutely, so I know we just talked a little
bit about DevelopmentalDisabilities Agencies that are
out there, but in each state,there's also the Vocational
Rehabilitative Agencies. In thestate of Maryland, we've talked
a lot about DORS, the Divisionof Rehabilitation Services, and
they are one of those agenciesthat will assist people with
different disabilities. Theirmain goal being to go to work

(01:09):
and to keep their job andprovide services that will help
with that, including assistivetechnology job training and
different career assessments andcounseling. Now, again, every
state has their own version ofVocational Rehabilitation
Agencies, so it's important togather that knowledge if you
were planning to go out ofMaryland at some point in the

(01:31):
future. It's important to notethat the Vocational
Rehabilitation Agencies also canhelp with some higher education,
although ultimately the goal foran individual is based around
work and job placement.
Typically, the process is thatyou'll be assigned a counselor
that will talk to the individualand their families about what
kind of services that they'relooking for or interested in,

(01:53):
and then they will be able totell them what they're able to
offer and how they might bedetermined eligible for these
services, because, again, aswe've we've mentioned many times
it's based off of eligibilitywith these agencies, and not
entitlement. These agencycounselors will work with the
different students, and theywork with a variety of different

(02:13):
disabilities. For the criteriafor this in the state of
Maryland, the student just needsto be at least 14 years old and
no more than 21 years old toaccess their pre-employment
transition services. They willlook for different criteria or
different assessments thatdocument a disability, but
again, that might be dependenton your state. So if you are

(02:36):
looking for more information onthe Vocational Rehabilitative
Agencies, you can go to ourhandy-dandy website,
www.postsecondarytransition.comand go to the top where the
different icons are listed. Andif you scroll under Resources
all the ways down the list, youwill see the Vocational
Rehabilitative Agency page. Andthere at the very top is a link

(03:00):
that says, find an agency foryou, which will bring you to the
website for the RehabilitationServices Administration.

Patrick Cadigan (03:10):
Yeah, RSA.Ed.gov, but the way that
this website works is it gives alist of all those Vocational
Rehabilitation Agencies bystate, they're placed
alphabetically. So you justscroll down to the state that
you're looking for. We alwaystell people that you know, keep

(03:32):
in mind that theserehabilitation agencies can have
different names. So like, forexample, in Alabama, it's
referred to as Department ofRehabilitation Services, whereas
if you scroll down to Kentucky,it is the Office of Vocational
Rehabilitation. So theinformation from this site will
give you a phone number and thewebsite that you can visit. So

(03:53):
just a very valuable resource,like we were saying, for
families, as they are doing thatresearch. And we just wanted to
make sure that we could sharethat out.

Meghan Smallwood (04:04):
Yeah, and I think it's important just to
keep in mind, again, if you doplan on planning for the future,
it is something to do a littleresearch on, because every state
has their own waiting list.
Every state has their own way ofhandling these different
services, and like Patrick said,they have different names. So
you want to familiarizeyourself, what with what else is
out there.

Patrick Cadigan (04:25):
All right, so good resource, good information,
and we look forward to talkingagain with you soon.

Meghan Smallwood (04:33):
Absolutely.
As always, you'll find links tothe information from our
conversations in our show notes.
We would love for theinformation from this and all
our other discussions to reachas many families as possible,
and we need your help to dothat. You can find our

(04:54):
conversations atwww.p2transition.com. Like,
follow, share out the podcast.
Our conversations are posted toall the major platforms,
including Apple podcasts,Spotify, YouTube music, and
that's just naming a few. Soplease share and share often.

Patrick Cadigan (05:14):
Please check out our YouTube channel. We've
done some of the legwork for youby curating videos of topics
that revolve around transition.
We have playlists forguardianship, alternatives to
guardianship, ABLE accounts, andthere's more to come. So please
be sure to subscribe there aswell. And finally, check out our
website, which is full ofinformation and links to
resources around the transitionprocess. Open your web browser

(05:36):
of choice and surf towww.postsecondarytransition.com.
We thank you so much for thetime that you've spent with us,
and look forward to talkingagain soon.