[NYAPRS Enews] OMH: NYMWP Increasing Employment Opportunities, Prepping for New Comprehensive Data System

[Harvey Rosenthal]

NYAPRS Note: NYAPRS is a proud advocate for and collaborator with New
York's Medicaid Infrastructure Grant, 'New York Makes Work Pay.' For
more details on our current efforts to assist PROS and other community
mental health agencies become Ticket to Work eligible Employment
Networks, please go to
http://www.nyaprs.org/community-economic-development/PROS-works/. Please
read in particular details of next year's major priority: the
development of a comprehensive cross state agency data system aimed at
ensuring that "access to job seekers, employment opportunities, asset
accumulation and employment-related services and supports is available
and organized to be responsive to individual business and job seeker
needs." 

 

An Update on New York Makes Work Pay - Employment for People with
Disabilities
by Michael Seereiter, Medicaid Infrastructure Grant Administrator   OMH
News  August 2010

 

In 2008, New York State (NYS) was awarded funding under a Medicaid
Infrastructure Grant from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services
(CMS) to develop infrastructure to support competitive employment
opportunities and outcomes for people with disabilities.  These funds
support the New York Makes
<http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/edi/nymakesworkpay/index.cfm>  Work Pay
Leaving OMH site(NY-MWP) program, a series of initiatives spearheaded by
OMH, in partnership with Cornell University's Employment and Disability
Institute and Syracuse University's Burton Blatt Institute, on behalf of
12 state agencies that come into contact with individuals with
disabilities seeking employment opportunities or employment-related
supports.

 

In July, NYS submitted a grant proposal to continue the NY-MWP program
through December 2011, focusing on several areas outlined in NY-MWP's
five-year strategic plan:

1.	Improve coordination across public and private agencies and
constituencies.
2.	Enable employment services providers to increase employment
outcomes (supply side).
3.	Enable employers to increase employment outcomes (demand side).
4.	Develop process to transition from sheltered/segregated to
competitive/integrated employment.
5.	Increase entrepreneurship outcomes.
6.	Increase access to work incentives planning, health care, and
asset accumulation.
7.	Help education and career services to increase employment
outcomes for youth.

 

Amongst the most exciting NY-MWP initiatives for New York's mental
health system is the development of a comprehensive employment services
data system, whereby access to job seekers, employment opportunities,
asset accumulation and employment-related services and supports is
available and organized to be responsive to individual business and job
seeker needs.  Utilizing the current Department of Labor One-Stop
Operating System as a platform for re-designing New York's comprehensive
employment system, this will eventually replace the various current
silos of employment-related information and fragmented approaches to
assist New Yorkers with disabilities find employment.  It is widely
anticipated that this re-designed system will prove beneficial not only
for job seekers, but employers, service providers, state agencies, and
others.

*	Specifically for individual job seekers, it is envisioned that
the re-designed employment system should provide assistance in
identifying individual job seeker's skills and providing immediate
notification of matching job opportunities.  In addition, the new system
should serve as a tool to assist in providing access to and helping
coordinate individualized employment supports.  Additionally, the system
should provide job seekers with access to entitlements screening and
assistance with documentation.  
*	Importantly, this system should also provide considerable
benefits to employers, affording them the opportunity to actively seek
out job seekers with disabilities - if those applicants choose to
disclose that they have a disability.  This will prove very helpful in
identifying employers potentially willing to customize jobs to meet
individual job seeker abilities.  In addition, the re-designed system
should assist employers in completing documentation for tax incentives
and other benefits associated with hiring individuals with disabilities.

*	Of benefit to service providers and state agencies, the
re-designed system should centralize all employment service information
for individuals with disabilities, providing the opportunity to
coordinate supports and eliminating certain reporting requirements.   Of
particular interest to service providers, this new system should have
the capacity to automatically generate Employment Network claiming
documentation necessary for receiving milestone payments associated with
assisting Ticket To Work holders achieve certain employment outcomes. 

 

It is anticipated that the implementation of New York's re-designed
employment services data system will take place in a number of phases
over the next few years.  However, we expect that by June of 2011, this
system will be available throughout much of the OMH system, as well as
OPWDD, CBVH, VESID, OASAS and SOFA. 

 

http://www.omh.state.ny.us/omhweb/resources/newsltr/2010/aug/#emp 

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