October 2024
Each year the Administration on Disabilities (AoD) Disability Employment Technical Assistance Center (DETAC), looks back on its accomplishments and progress toward outcomes through a summative evaluation. Key areas of interest during the most recent evaluation period included pre-employment transition services (pre-ETS), employer engagement, phasing out 14(c)/ending the subminimum wage, person-centeredness in employment, and inclusive higher education.
DETAC facilitates activities focused on systems change, innovation, and collaboration across the following five channels: National Community of Practice (CoP), Results & Innovation in Systems Excellence (RISE) Peer Action e-Learning Communities, On-Demand Technical Assistance (TA), Resource Development, and Website and Resource Clearinghouse. TA provision is an evolving process that consists of identification of needs, partnering with experts for delivery, and making data driven decisions, with stakeholder engagement present throughout.
Highlights include:
- An average of 493 people in attendance across 10 webinars, an increase of 11% compared to the prior year, with 95% satisfaction
- Engaged over 30 subject matter experts in TA activities
- 47,916 website views, an increase of 17% compared to the prior year
- 7 RISE communities, with 94% satisfaction*
- Participation in 4 national conferences
DETAC demonstrated progress toward outcomes in areas such as increased knowledge and capacity to implement evidence-based practices, commitment to implement new strategies to advance competitive, integrated employment (CIE), collaboration with partners, including Vocational Rehabilitation (VR), public policy reform and systems change, and commitment to share learnings with colleagues. For example:
- 93% of webinar participants and 94% of RISE participants committed to implement one or more key learnings to advance CIE
- 95% of webinar participants and 94% of RISE participants committed to share information learned with colleagues
DETAC will continue its momentum into the 2024-2025 year by continuing to focus on existing and emerging TA needs including enhancing financial literacy, pre-ETS, employer engagement, collaboration with VR, and leveraging data to drive strategies for advancing CIE at state and local levels.
The full evaluation report is available here.
* This satisfaction metric accounts for 4 out of the 7 RISE communities that took place during the evaluation period. For 3 of the 7 communities, data was not yet available as of the end of the evaluation period on July 31, 2024.
