From Services to Success: Navigating Community Engagement for Job Seekers with Brain Injury

Administration on Disabilities (AoD) Disability Employment Technical Assistance Center (DETAC) Results and Innovation in Systems Excellence (RISE) e-Learning Community

 

APPLICATIONS DUE: Wednesday, September 9, 2026 by 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time (ET)

 

Apply here

 

Full Application Hyperlink: https://app.smartsheet.com/b/form/019faf5624ed70499f7b9a60a440ade7

 

Who Should Participate?

This RISE community is open to current and prospective TBI State Partnership Program Grantees. This community will help participants navigate program barriers to support access to qualifying community engagement activities. Participants will identify strategies to help ensure people with brain injury are not unnecessarily sidelined from workforce participation due to system constraints rather than individual readiness or capacity.

 

About This Community

Recent federal Medicaid policy changes have increased the focus on employment for certain Medicaid enrollees, including some people with disabilities. CMS has issued an interim final rule implementing statutory Medicaid community engagement requirements, which states generally must implement by January 1, 2027. Under these requirements, certain enrollees will need to participate in qualifying work, education, job training, or other approved activities to maintain Medicaid eligibility, unless they qualify for an exemption. 

 

For individuals with brain injury, Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) and Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) services can be important resources for meeting the Medicaid community engagement requirements. Program barriers can affect access to these services. For example, VR programs use a process called order of selection (OOS) to manage limited resources by prioritizing individuals with the most significant barriers to employment. Because brain injury may not be fully captured in standard assessments, individuals may face delays or reduced access to services. Job seekers accessing other WIOA services, such as the American Job Centers, may be redirected to public VR programs on the assumption that their disability warrants specialized services. If the VR program is operating under an OOS wait list, that referral can result in further delay or denial of employment supports rather than faster access.  

 

This RISE community will help participants navigate program barriers to support access to qualifying community engagement activities. Participants will identify strategies to help ensure people with brain injury are not unnecessarily sidelined from workforce participation due to system constraints rather than individual readiness or capacity. 

 

Learning Objectives

1. Understand Medicaid community engagement requirements and their implications for people with brain injury 
2. Understand how VR waitlists and OOS affect job seekers with brain injury 
3. Recognize opportunities for when and how WIOA-funded employer services can be accessed concurrently with VR services 
4. Build competency in navigation and advocacy/self-advocacy skill-building approaches that support job seekers with brain injury in overcoming systemic barriers to employment 
5. Identify at least one clear action step you will take based on your participation, that the DETAC Team will follow up with you to check on progress after the community ends.  

Desired Outcomes

1. Increased capacity to scale or replicate promising and/or innovative practices 
2. Increased knowledge of strategies to impact disability employment within program goals and authorities 
3. Increased knowledge of community/state partners and infrastructure 

Facilitators & Guest Speakers  

This community will be facilitated by Jill Ferrington and Maria Crowley from the National Association of State Head Injury Administrators (NASHIA), with subject matter expert guest speakers, Russ Thelin from Institute for Community Inclusion (ICI), and Daniel Ignacio. Refer to the bottom of this webpage for detailed speaker bios.

Session Schedule:

Two, two-hour sessions in September 2026 from 2:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time (ET).  

• Session 1: September 24, 2026
• Session 2: September 29, 2026

Session Outline:

Session	Date	Details
Session 1	9/24/26	Overview of Medicaid community engagement requirements: who is subject, exemption criteria for people with disabilities, and implications for individuals with brain injury on VR or WIOA waitlists  Initial overview of VR, OOS, and WIOA  Summary of the national landscape  Understand common waitlist challenges  Severity determination and re-assessment advocacy when appropriate  Assessment tools  Community-based advocacy supports along with self-advocacy strategies  Partnering strategies and related impairment guidance from brain injury programs  Check-in with/monitor participants’ progress with achieving RISE community learning objectives
Session 2	9/29/26

Technical Details and Accessibility:

• Zoom links will be provided to accepted applicants via email and sent to the contact person(s) listed in the application.
• All communication about the community will come from the DETAC Team via the DETAC@lewin.com mailbox.
• Closed captioning will be provided in every session. American Sign Language (ASL) and other accommodations will be provided by request.
• If you require accommodations to participate, please note in the application or send an email to DETAC@lewin.com at least three (3) business days in advance of the session.
• If you experience any issues with the application form, please contact DETAC@lewin.com.  

Facilitator/Guest Speaker Bios

 

Jill Ferrington, MS, CRC, CBIS has spent more than three decades advancing disability initiatives at the intersection of policy, practice, and lived experience. Her expertise spans brain injury, competitive integrated employment (including self-employment), Home and Community-Based Services, and Medicaid Buy-In. Jill partners with states to translate complex priorities into action — helping them engage stakeholders, develop meaningful State Plans, strengthen advisory councils, and design person-centered and peer support models tailored to their communities. She also supports efforts to expand identification of and improve service delivery for people with brain injury, and brings deep experience in training and resource development across a wide range of brain injury topics. She serves as a subject matter expert for DETAC and as a consultant for New Editions LLC, the HCBS technical assistance contractor for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. 

 

Maria Crowley, MA, CRC, serves as NASHIA’s Director of Professional Development, planning and coordinating programs to enhance the knowledge and skills of the brain injury community, focusing on state government needs. She is also serves as a primary consultant for the TBI Technical Assistance and Resource Center, funded by the Administration for Community Living (ACL), supporting State TBI grantees and other stakeholders. She has worked in the disabilities field with state government for 30 years, and specifically in brain injury since 2000, to help individuals with disabilities reach their maximum potential in home, community, and employment. Maria was the State Head Injury Program Director for the Alabama Department of Rehabilitation Services (ADRS), designated lead agency in Alabama for traumatic brain injury (TBI) services, for 14 years. Maria has Certification in Rehabilitation Counseling (CRC), a BS in Psychology an MA in Rehabilitation Counseling from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She served as the Project Director for the current HHS/ACL TBI State Partnership grant, and coordinated the statewide Head Injury Task Force, Head & Spinal Cord Injury Trust Fund Advisory Board and the Alabama Head & Spinal Cord Injury Registry and Service Linkage System.  

 

Maria started working in the rehabilitation field as a job coach, then later as a Business Relations Consultant with ADRS, facilitating the job placement of individuals with a wide variety of disabilities and providing customized employment training and consult for businesses statewide.  In addition to conducting a wealth of training over the past 30 years on numerous issues related to traumatic brain injury, she has trained rehabilitation, social service and employment professionals on a wide array of topics, including the Americans with Disabilities Act, employment law, disability awareness/etiquette, specialized placement and accommodations.   

 

Russ Thelin, MS, LVRC, CRC 

 

A 36-year Rehabilitation professional, Russ Thelin is proprietor of Known Way Consulting, LLC and is a Senior Policy Fellow with the Institute for Community Inclusion (ICI) at the University of Massachusetts Boston. He is a subject matter expert on Vocational Rehabilitation, Inclusive Postsecondary Education, Evolutionary Leadership, Clinical Transformative Supervision, Business Engagement, and more. Russ is the Co-Director of the National Training Center for Transformational Rehabilitation Leadership (ntctrl.org) and leads or co-leads projects at ICI on the Rapid Engagement/Teaming Approach (RETA) model of VR service delivery and Clinical Transformative Supervision. Russ holds a master’s degree in Rehabilitation Counseling from Utah State University and a bachelor’s degree in Sociology from the University of Utah.  He is a nationally Certified Rehabilitation Counselor (CRC) and Certified Rehabilitation Leader (CRL). Russ worked for 25-years at the Utah State Office of Rehabilitation, holding several roles within that agency included, among many, the agency’s Executive Director, Division Director, and Vocational Rehabilitation Counselor. Russ is a Past-President of the National Rehabilitation Association, serving from 2022-2025 and is a past member of the Board of Directors of the Commission on Rehabilitation Counselor Certification (CRCC). Heavily requested as a keynote speaker, Russ enjoys presenting at conferences both in person and virtually. He is the recipient of the Utah Rehabilitation Association Garth Eldredge Award of Excellence and the Utah Ethical Leadership in Government Award from Zions Bank/The Daniels Fund/University of Utah.

 

Daniel Ignacio, PhD, MS, MPH, PSY, LMFT, CBIS

 

Daniel Andre Ignacio, is a clinical neuropsychologist, brain injury rehabilitation leader, researcher, and person with lived experience of traumatic brain injury (TBI) whose work bridges clinical care, vocational rehabilitation, community reintegration, public health, and systems change. He serves as Program Lead and Certified Brain Injury Specialist for Providence St. Jude Medical Center’s Brain Injury Network, is a licensed clinical neuropsychologist and faculty member at OMID Multicultural Institute, and serves as Director of Vocational Rehabilitation and a licensed marriage and family therapist for CareTheresa Assisted Living Network. His research and policy work focuses on improving long-term community participation/reintegration and employment outcomes after acquired brain injury, reducing rehabilitation disparities, strengthening resource-facilitation and disability-support systems, and translating research into local, state, and federal systems change. He has led data, surveillance, and policy initiatives within California’s TBI system and contributes to national work addressing the evaluation of disability following TBI. Dr. Ignacio earned his doctorate in Clinical Psychology from Fielding Graduate University, completed his predoctoral internship with the NWI Veterans Affairs Consortium, postdoctoral fellowship in Clinical Neuropsychology at UCLA’s BrainSPORT program, and public health training at the MPH|HP program at UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. At age 18, Dr. Ignacio sustained a “severe” TBI accompanied by pneumothorax, hypoxemia, and a prolonged coma; now an 18-year survivor, he brings that lived experience to a career centered on helping people with brain injury reclaim meaningful roles, employment, independence, and community participation while advancing more equitable systems of rehabilitation and support.