Public Policy Commons^™

The Development Of Boston's Seaport District: Employment Opportunities And Community Strategies, O. Steven Quimby

Gastón Institute Publications

The development of Boston's Seaport District will create thousands of full-time employment opportunities over the next decade. To ensure equitable access to these opportunities for Boston's communities of color, it is imperative that organizations offering employment-training programs begin to take these opportunities into account now in their training efforts. The Center for Community Economic Development (CCED) at the University of Massachusetts Boston has prepared this report, The Development of Boston's Seaport District: Employment Opportunities and Community Strategies, as a step in becoming informed about these opportunities.

This study examines employment opportunities to be created in three industries projected to be …

Research To Practice: Effective Customer Service Delivery In Employment Support: Finding A Common Ground Between Guided And Self-Directed Service Delivery, Institute For Community Inclusion, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Research to Practice Series, Institute for Community Inclusion

An ICI study analyzed the experiences of individuals who successfully found jobs through agencies and discovered five characteristics of effective employment services. This brief describes guided and self-directed approaches and provides recommendations for agency staff.

Characteristics Of Effective Employment Services: The Consumers’ Perspective, Jaimie Ciulla Timmons, Jennifer Schuster, Doris Hamner, Jennifer Bose

All Institute for Community Inclusion Publications

This monograph reports on a study investigating the characteristics of effective state service systems. Findings are based on the experiences of individuals with disabilities who have used a state agency (Vocational Rehabilitation, Department of Mental Retardation, Department of Mental Health, or One Stop Center) to find employment. Interviews were conducted to examine individuals' experiences with employment services including job search, job entry, strategies that facilitated involvement, supports provided, and barriers experienced. Findings indicated five key components to effective service delivery, including agency culture, consumer-directedness, access to resources, quality personnel, and coordinated services. Obstacles faced during the employment process and personal …

Vocational Rehabilitation Outcomes For People With Mental Retardation, Cerebral Palsy, And Epilepsy: An Analysis Of Trends From 1985 To 1998, Dana Scott Gilmore, Jennifer Schuster, John Butterworth

All Institute for Community Inclusion Publications

This monograph presents the results of secondary analysis of the RSA-911 database from the Rehabilitation Services Administration. All successful VR closures for individuals with mental retardation, cerebral palsy, and epilepsy for six data points between 1985 and 1998 were investigated. Trends in competitive labor market and extended employment (sheltered workshops) closures were examined. The use of supported employment in the VR system and its outcomes were also discussed. Findings include increased incidence of competitive labor market closures and supported employment services, with a decrease in extended employment closures.

Comparisons of successful VR closure outcomes to trends in the general labor …

Research To Practice: Work Status Trends For People With Mental Retardation, Fy 1985 To Fy 1998, Dana Scott Gilmore, John Butterworth

Research to Practice Series, Institute for Community Inclusion

National trends regarding extended employment (sheltered workshops) and competitive employment outcomes from state Vocational Rehabilitation systems between 1985 and 1998.

Institute Brief: Wia And One-Stop Centers: Opportunities And Issues For The Disability Community, David Hoff

The Institute Brief Series, Institute for Community Inclusion

This brief gives a basic overview of the act and examines its impact on the lives of people with disabilities as well as the systems and organizations that assist them.

Research To Practice: Time Limits, Exemption, And Disclosure: Tanf Caseworkers And Clients With Disabilities, Jaimie Ciulla Timmons, Danielle Dreilinger

Research to Practice Series, Institute for Community Inclusion

Findings show that welfare caseworkers experience unique challenges when supporting welfare recipients with disabilities, including time limit pressures and conflict over exemptions. The brief includes a resource list for caseworkers.

Alternatives To Incarceration For Substance Abusing Female Defendants/Offenders In Massachusetts, 1996-1998, Carol Hardy-Fanta, Sylvia Mignon

Publications from the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy

In July 1997, the Massachusetts State Legislature, recognizing the challenge presented by the problem of substance abuse for women in the criminal justice system, authorized funds to the Department of Public Health’s Bureau of Substance Abuse Services for a study of substance using female offenders to be conducted by the John W. McCormack Institute at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Since March 1998, a group of researchers at the McCormack Institute and the Criminal Justice Center at UMass Boston has gathered and analyzed a wealth of quantitative and qualitative information on women offenders in Massachusetts.

This information includes data from …

Latino Agenda 2000, Leslie Bowen, Lillian Hirales, Mary Jo Marion, Giovanna Negretti, Andrés Torres

Gastón Institute Publications

Few would argue that our community's position is precarious. On the one hand, we are a growing presence in the Commonwealth. In 1995, there were an estimated 344,068 Latinos living in Massachusetts, representing 5.6% of the total state population, a 20% increase since 1990. It is expected that the 2000 census will confirm that Latinos are indeed the largest minority group in the state. Latinos make up an even larger proportion of the total population of a number of key cities, including Lawrence (48%), Chelsea (39%), Holyoke (37%), Springfield (20%), and Boston (12%). Latino youth have formed the largest minority …

Research To Practice: Building A Future: Working With The Post-High School Expectations Of Students & Parents, Jennifer Schuster, Steven Graham, Mairead Moloney

Research to Practice Series, Institute for Community Inclusion

This brief examined the circumstances that accompany high expectations for the future for Massachusetts high school students who receive special education services and their parents. Includes recommendations on how to build and fulfill students' goals for adulthood.

Editor's Note, Padraig O'Malley

New England Journal of Public Policy

We are pleased to bring you the first issue of the New England Journal of Public Policy in the new century. We rejoice that at the stroke of midnight on December 31, 1999, the planet did not implode, meteors did not shower us with the debris of their displeasure with us earthlings, aircraft did not fall out of the sky, catastrophic convulsions in our ecosystems did not engulf us, telecommunication systems functioned with indifferent insouciance to the inner terrors of our crippled imaginations. The world, one minute after January 1, 2000, was yawningly the same as one minute before.

Whether …

Policy Brief: Provisions In The Workforce Investment Act Relating To Nondiscrimination On The Basis Of Disability And The Development By The Governor Of A Written Methods Of Administration, Robert Silverstein

Policy Briefs Series, Institute for Community Inclusion

An outline of key provisions in the interim final regulations describing the nondiscrimination and equal opportunity responsibilities of the governor, WIA fund recipients, and programs and activities that are part of the One-Stop system.

Tools For Inclusion: People With Disabilities: Having A Voice In The Creation Of The New Workforce Investment System, David Hoff

Tools for Inclusion Series, Institute for Community Inclusion

This publication informs people with disabilities and advocates about the opportunities available for input into WIA implementation at the state and local level.

Policy Brief: Improvements To The Ssdi And Ssi Work Incentives And Expanded Availability Of Health Care Services To Workers With Disabilities Under The Ticket To Work And Work Incentives Improvement Act Of 1999, Robert Silverstein

Policy Briefs Series, Institute for Community Inclusion

This brief gives background information on federal income maintenance and health care programs, and describes the major provisions of the Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Improvement Act.

Tools For Inclusion: One-Stop Centers: A Guide For Job Seekers With Disabilities, Sheila Fesko, David Hoff, Melanie Jordan

Tools for Inclusion Series, Institute for Community Inclusion

General information about the One-Stop system and answers to specific questions individuals with disabilities may have about One-Stop services.

Policy Brief: The Ticket To Work And Self-Sufficiency Program And Established Under The Ticket To Work And Work Incentives Improvement Act Of 1999, Robert Silverstein

Policy Briefs Series, Institute for Community Inclusion

A description of the major provisions in Title I of the Act, which created the Ticket to Work and Self-Sufficiency Program.

Tools For Inclusion: Helpful Hints: How To Fill Out A Winning Pass Application, Jaimie Ciulla Timmons, Steven Graham

Tools for Inclusion Series, Institute for Community Inclusion

This brief uses the story of one career woman to illustrate how to apply for and use a PASS (Plan for Achieving Self Support), a Social Security program that allows people receiving SSI to maintain benefits as they start working.

Tools For Inclusion: Understanding The Ssi Work Incentives, John Butterworth

Tools for Inclusion Series, Institute for Community Inclusion

Information about Social Security Administration programs that can help people who receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI) to retain benefits that can support and ensure long-term employment.

The Sargent Governorship: Leader And Legacy, Richard A. Hogarty

New England Journal of Public Policy

Following in the long line of succession of his predecessors, Francis W. Sargent served as the sixty-third governor of Massachusetts. A lifelong Republican, he was a man of character and sterling Yankee blue-blood lineage with the stature of a political independent. Grappling with a series of hot political issues and braving the passions and divisions spawned by the war in Vietnam, he was one of the ablest and most intriguing men ever to be governor. He worked hard at knowing his constituents and their concerns, but he did not always provide them with easy answers. Several new ideas were transformed …

Editor's Note, Padraig O'Malley

New England Journal of Public Policy

When you receive this issue of the New England Journal of Public Policy, we should be crossing the threshold from millennium mania to millennium madness. The former has concerned itself almost exclusively with the etiquette of millennium rites, where one ought to be on the occasion itself — embracing the starlit grandeur of the ancient pyramids, as if to remind ourselves that some things preceded the outgoing millennium and even exceeded the achievements of our own: in the silence of a Tibetan monastery to contemplate in serenity the philosophical implications of the momentous transition and reflect perhaps on the …

The Mechtech Program: An Education And Training Model For The Next Century, Robert Forrant

New England Journal of Public Policy

The small-firm metalworking industry is routinely characterized by cutthroat competition and fierce privacy. Yet, since the late 1980s, the members of the western Massachusetts chapter of the National Tooling and Machining Association have participated in an education, training, and technology diffusion network characterized by a high degree of interfirm cooperation. Hundreds of workers and managers have take part in group training sessions and seminars. The reconstruction of the skill base is central to the MechTech apprenticeship program through which apprentices spend four years in participating firms, exiting the program as licensed machinists, tool and die makers, or moldmakers. In an …

Making Family Leave More Affordable In Massachusetts: The Temporary Disability Insurance Model, Jillian P. Dickert

Publications from the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy

The passage of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) in 1993 was a milestone in the development of America’s basic labor standards. But many realized that the Act—which guaranteed 12 weeks unpaid leave for employees of large businesses—was only a cautious first step. The US continues to lag far behind most other nations in providing paid time off for employees needing to care for family members or their own non-work-related illnesses.

States have begun to examine ways to expand both federal and state family and medical leave policies to make them accessible to more workers. State Temporary Disability Insurance …

Research To Practice: Working It Out: Workplace Experiences Of Individuals With Hiv And Individuals With Cancer, Sheila Fesko

Research to Practice Series, Institute for Community Inclusion

This brief describes the experiences of individuals with these illnesses, underlines similarities and differences between the two groups, and provides strategies for disclosure, support, and personal advocacy in the workplace.

Policy Brief: Provisions In The Workforce Investment Act Describing The Interplay Between Workforce Investment Systems And Vocational Rehabilitation Programs, Robert Silverstein

Policy Briefs Series, Institute for Community Inclusion

This brief identifies the sections in Title I of the Workforce Investment Act that specifically reference the state VR program, individuals with disabilities, and organizations representing individuals with disabilities.

Housing For All: Addressing The Housing Needs Of Massachusetts' North Shore Residents, Theresa Mason, Elaine Werby, Caroline Coscia, Lisa Ward, Donna Friedman

Center for Social Policy Publications

The aim of this report is to support North Shore efforts to build a regional approach to housing.

The report explores the housing needs of people who are caught in the squeeze between low incomes and high housing costs. The report has two goals:

1. to provide information for understanding the need to expand below market rate housing;
2. to illustrate that need by providing detailed documentation on the situation in Gloucester, Peabody, and Salem.

The report is not intended to propose solutions, but to provide groundwork for solutions.

Institute Brief: Recreation In The Community, Maria Paiewonsky, Susan Tufts

The Institute Brief Series, Institute for Community Inclusion

Recommendations from community recreation providers on how to include youth with disabilities in recreation programs.

Research To Practice: The Successes And Struggles Of Closing A Facility-Based Employment Service, John Butterworth, Sheila Fesko

Research to Practice Series, Institute for Community Inclusion

A brief overview of findings from the Conversion to Integrated Employment monographs.

Institute Brief: Quality Employment Services: Will You Know It When You See It?, David Hoff

The Institute Brief Series, Institute for Community Inclusion

Guidelines and steps for people with disabilities to evaluate agencies in order to receive services that best meet their individual needs.

Research To Practice: Barriers To Transition Planning For Parents Of Adolescents With Special Health Care Needs, Jaimie Ciulla Timmons, James P. Mcintyre Jr., Jean Whitney-Thomas, John Butterworth, Deborah Allen

Research to Practice Series, Institute for Community Inclusion

An examination of the transition planning experiences and concerns of family members of young adults with special health care needs.

Editor's Note, Padraig O'Malley

New England Journal of Public Policy

This is the next to last issue of the New England Journal of Public Policy before we usher in the new millennium. In the coming year the word itself will go through many uses, many permutations of meaning, be subject of so much tendentious punditry, idiotic speculation, inane commentary, and pompous prognostications that it will have been sucked dry of meaning, and we will be left with a plethora of "millennium specials" and "the top one hundred of the millennium" in everything from cat food to human diet fads, and of course your perennial millennium "special sales" and "personalities of …