Evaluation

Disability Employment Technical Assistance Center Annual Summative Evaluation Reports

In September 2020, the Administration on Disabilities (AoD) within the Administration for Community Living (ACL), awarded The Lewin Groupand TASH (Lewin/TASH) a five-year contract to support the establishment of the Disability Employment Technical Assistance Center (DETAC). To ensure continuous improvement and measure the impact of technical assistance (TA) on AoD grantees, DETAC conducts an ongoing evaluation of activities. Part of the evaluation plan is a summative assessment that reports on the TA activities conducted and associated grantee impact for each funding period. The summative assessment documents activities conducted between August or September to July for the years indicated.

2023-2024 Report

Key areas of interest during the 2023-2024 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.

Highlights from the most recent evaluation period (August 2023 – July 2024) 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
Participation in 4 national conferences

The full evaluation report is available here.

2022-2023 Report

Key areas of interest during the 2022-2023 evaluation period included assistive technology, 14(c) phase-out, collaboration between Centers for Independent Living (CILs) and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) State Partnership Programs, and community engagement.

This evaluation report covers the period of August 2022-July 2023. The full evaluation report is available here.

2021-2022 Report

Key areas of interest during the 2021-2022 evaluation period included financial independence; technological innovations; knowledge translation and diffusion; and the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Highlights include:

An average of 372 people attended each of 12 webinars with 97% satisfaction
Over 60 subject matter experts engaged in TA activities
38,427 website views
5 RISE communities with 100% engagement and 96% satisfaction

DETAC demonstrated progress toward outcomes in areas such as increased knowledge and capacity to implement evidence-based practices, collaboration with partners, commitment to advance competitive, integrated employment, public policy reform and systems change, and commitment to share learnings with colleagues. As a result, grantees took action to build knowledge, discuss challenges, and identify strategies for implementation. For example:

92% of webinar participants reported an increase in knowledge
95% of webinar participants and 96% of RISE participants committed to implement one or more key learnings to advance competitive integrated employment
96% of webinar and RISE participants committed to share information learned with colleagues

The full evaluation report is available here.