Nashville Career Advancement Center

Background

The Nashville Career Advancement Center (NCAC) coordinates employment and training services for the Middle Tennessee Career Center (Local Workforce Investment Area 9). NCAC provides a comprehensive network of career, employment, educational, and training resources for employers, employees, and job seekers in Davidson, Rutherford, Trousdale, and Wilson counties.

NCAC uses Work Incentive Grant (WIG) funds, through the Career Access Network (CAN,) to improve employment and training services to customers with disabilities who have been referred to the Center through the -WIA, Welfare-to-Work, TANF and Dislocated Worker programs.

Back to Top

Goals and Methods

The Center uses WIG funds to improve service for customers with disabilities, expand capacity, broaden and strengthen the system for serving individuals with disabilities in the middle Tennessee area, and evaluate progress.

Improve service to customers with disabilities:

• Expand the number of customers served. NCAC contacted disability-related service providers, undertook a public relations campaign to make the community aware of the disability services available within the center, and provided targeted outreach to customers with disabilities located in public housing as a focus for the grant.
• Improve access for customers with disabilities. NCAC contracted with the Center for Independent Living to ensure that all One Stops were physically accessible to persons with disabilities. The CIL staff undertook an assessment of the accessibility of each of NCAC's six one stops for both physical and technical accessibility.
• Improve the quality of service to customers with disabilities. As part of their contracted services, CIL staff serve as "Special Services Facilitators" to act as gatekeepers in the WIA system. After they educate the job seekers regarding program services, the customer chooses their path through the system.
• Remove barriers to participation. The NCAC ensured that customers receiving SSI or SSDI assistance were connected to Benefits Planning and Outreach staff co-located at the One-stop.

Expand capacity

Train staff and educate community. The NCAC's WIG partners are service and resource providers themselves, and can offer education and training on the needs and abilities of people with disabilities to One-Stop staff and the larger community.

Broaden and strengthen the system for serving individuals with disabilities

• Develop and expand community networks for serving customers with disabilities. For example, the United Way of Metropolitan Nashville convened a small working group of employment and training providers for people with disabilities to develop innovative strategies to better serve this group.
• Bring employers and workers with disabilities together. CAN grant staff ran an employer forum to provide an opportunity for employers to voice doubts and concerns about hiring individuals with disabilities in order to improve employment opportunities for job seekers with disabilities.

Evaluation

NCAC is using the Career Access Network customer survey to evaluate how well One-Stop centers are serving individuals with disabilities. The survey presents key statements regarding the Special Service Facilitator, referrals, transportation, center accessibility, and overall services. Individuals are asked to rate their experience with these according to the established rating scale.

Back to Top

Partners

Building partnerships to expand and improve employment and career services is one of NCAC's major strengths. Key partners include community colleges; vocational and adult education programs; mature worker programs; vocational rehabilitation programs; unemployment compensation programs; human services agencies; and other federal, state and community groups.

The core partners in the WIN effort are the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development (Employment Security), the Vocational Rehabilitation Division, the Adult Education Division, and the Tennessee Department of Human Services.

In addition, NCAC cultivated alliances with Tennessee advocacy groups for people with disabilities, service providers and professional organizations such as The Tennessee Disability Coalition [TDC, which runs the state Disability Business and Technical Assistance Center (DBTAC)]. NCAC also worked with agencies concerned with independent living and self sufficiency for the individuals with disabilities; agencies providing recruitment and outreach services; and agencies that provide adult day training, vocational programs, supported employment, community participation, residential and supported living services, and family support services.

Among these additional partners are:

• The Center for Independent Living of Middle Tennessee (CILMT). The Center gives people with disabilities the means to make their own decisions about housing, transportation, employment and other basic areas of life. CILMT is a member of the Tennessee Disability Coalition, and has a close working relationship with the DBTAC for Middle Tennessee.
• IAM CARES. With an extensive history of success in recruitment and outreach to individuals with disabilities, IAM CARES will be responsible for intensive community-based outreach. IAM CARES also will draw upon the expertise of its nearly 60-member Business Advisory Council (BAC) to support area employers in employing individuals with disabilities.
• The Tennessee Division of Rehabilitation Services: Vocational Rehabilitation Services and the State Division of Mental Retardation Services. Vocational Rehabilitation provides services to customers in the One-stop as a WIA partner. The VR staff provides intake for VR services and provides referral back into the WIA system for both individuals who do not meet VR eligibility and those that do, in order to leverage WIA services to best meet customer employment needs.
• Tennessee TANF program. Tennessee's TANF program, Families First, provides mental health, domestic violence, and A&D counseling through a Family Services Counseling system. When customers are identified as having special needs, they are referred to CAN grant staff.
• Department of Human Resources, Division of Rehabilitation Services. Assists citizens with disabilities across the state become self-sufficient, gain employment, or receive timely and accurate decisions on their applications for disability benefits.

Back to Top

Innovation

The NCAC is using WIN funds to pioneer two innovations that better serve clients with disabilities.

First, the NCAC tackled the issue of accessibility directly by recruiting a specialist from the Center for Independent Living. The specialist ensured that the One-Stop center, as well as other sites, had an accessibility station for customers with disabilities. In addition, the NCAC ensured that the stations were occupied by knowledgeable personnel. This combination of physical and programmatic accessibility increased the number of people with disabilities served.

Second, the NCAC made use of nontraditional networks to expand system capacity. The Center contacted public housing agencies, Drug Court and Families First to tap into their network of employment services. The Center also linked to the TANF program via DHS staff and TANF contractors. Cooperating with these nontraditional partners helped create additional employment opportunities for the Center's clients with disabilities.