Post-employment services are an essential yet often overlooked component of the tribal vocational rehabilitation (TVR) process. While placement is a significant milestone, long-term employment success depends on timely, responsive supports after a participant begins work. This session highlights how post-employment services help individuals maintain employment, regain employment if separation occurs, and advance along a meaningful career pathway.
Participants will explore how these services address unexpected challenges that may threaten job stability, including workplace adjustments, changes in functional capacity, or evolving employer expectations. Emphasis will be placed on proactive planning during development of the Individualized Plan for Employment (IPE), including identifying and documenting anticipated post-employment needs at the outset. Attendees will gain practical strategies to strengthen employment retention, promote career advancement, and improve long-term outcomes.
Learning Outcomes
- Present the criteria for the provision of post-employment services
- Discuss the rationale and distinction between PES and re-opening vs opening a new case
- Present and discuss the scope of services that are allowable under a PES Individualized Plan for Employment (IPE)
In Tribal Vocational Rehabilitation (TVR), success is built on “Critical Connections”, strong, respectful partnerships between staff, participants, and their communities. Shifting from a Western “expert” model to an Indigenous empowerment framework, TVR rejects paternalism in favor of shared responsibility. Guided by the Native philosophy that no one succeeds alone, the participant acts as an equal partner and architect of their own journey.
This session explores how TVR counselors foster trust through clear, culturally responsive communication, often in Native languages, to support informed decision-making. By integrating community resources like housing, mental health, and State VR agencies, counselors address holistic barriers beyond employment. Attendees will learn to cultivate these essential relationships, ensuring participants have the autonomy and support necessary to achieve personal growth and lasting career success.
Learning Outcomes
- To provide participants with information about AIVRS service delivery model
- Discuss the importance of establishing an effective outreach and referral process
- Review steps required to developing and effective outreach plan.
The American Indian–Rural Youth Apprenticeship Development (AI-RYAD) Project is designed to support American Indian Vocational Rehabilitation (AIVR) programs and their workforce partners in building culturally grounded, community-driven pre-apprenticeship pathways that expand employment and economic opportunities for tribal youth with disabilities.
This sectional will introduce participants to how pre-apprenticeships provide an entry point into apprenticeships by providing youth and young adults an opportunity to explore the skills, expectations, and potential of a given occupation. This session provides strategies and a framework to use when considering how the pre-apprenticeship model can be used in your community, as well as the first steps to consider and implement for developing pre-apprenticeship opportunities.
Learning Outcomes
- Participants will be able to describe the components of a quality pre-apprenticeship as well as potential partners for developing these opportunities.
- Participants will have materials to begin exploring pre-apprenticeship opportunities in their community and consider what their first steps are in developing a pre-apprenticeship
- Participants will know how to access pre-apprenticeship tools and resources available to them on ExploreVR and other networks.
Working memory is the brain’s mental workbench, the space where we hold and manipulate information long enough to make sense of it and act on it. It’s also a critical part of executive functioning with an integral role in many academic and work tasks: reading comprehension, writing composition, math problem solving, taking notes, following directions, managing tasks, and building mental concepts. When working memory is overwhelmed, students and employees may struggle.
Using examples from various academic and workplace settings, AT consultant Shelley Haven will demonstrate pairing working memory compensation strategies with specific technology features to help externalize (offload) information with digital tools, categorize it into meaningful chunks, and organize it for more effective use, long-term retention, and recall.
Learning Outcomes
- Identify common working memory obstacles that affect academic and work tasks like reading, writing, math, note-taking, planning, problem-solving, and retention
- Explain how externalizing, categorizing, and organizing information helps to reduce working memory demands
- Select at least three AT tools or features that help compensate for working memory challenges and explain how they can assist learning and work-related tasks
Individuals with disabilities often experience layered trauma resulting from medical systems, social exclusion, systemic inequities, and mental health conditions. These experiences significantly influence employment engagement and outcomes, yet disability-related trauma is frequently overlooked in vocational rehabilitation (VR) practice. This presentation highlights an innovative, intersectional approach to trauma-informed care (TIC) within disability disciplines, emphasizing cultural competence and counselor-centered practice. Participants will explore how disability, trauma, and identity intersect to shape vocational experiences and employment trajectories. The session bridges theory and application by translating trauma-informed principles into practical counseling strategies that promote psychological safety, empowerment, and meaningful employment. Designed for professionals in disability and workforce systems, this training reframes VR practice through a trauma-informed, culturally responsive lens that supports ethical, inclusive, and effective employment services.
Learning Outcomes
- Describe how trauma and disability intersect and explain how these intersections influence engagement, assessment, and employment planning in vocational rehabilitation practice.
- Demonstrate trauma informed care, culturally responsive communication strategies that promote emotional safety and strengthen the counselor client relationship with individuals experiencing mental health conditions.
- Apply at least two trauma informed counseling techniques within vocational rehabilitation interactions to support client autonomy, reduce re traumatization and reinforce the the professional counseling role if VR staff.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is constantly evolving technology, which is commonly used in the workplace. Employers utilize AI for a growing number of functions. Employees with disabilities can utilize AI as a reasonable accommodation to assist in completing required job tasks. However, inaccessible AI programs can also pose barriers for employees with disabilities.
This session will provide information about some of the uses of AI to assist employees with disabilities in the workplace, and barriers that AI may pose to applicants and employees with disabilities. This session will also provide information about the rights of employees with disabilities under the Americans with Disabilities Act to request and receive reasonable accommodations in the workplace. Additionally, this session will explore some recent developments around AI in the workplace.
Learning Outcomes
- The various forms of AI that are used by employers and employees in the workplace, and potential barriers posed by AI to employees with disabilities.
- The rights of employees with disabilities to request and receive reasonable accommodations, and some examples of AI as a reasonable accommodation.
- How AI can be used to assist people with disabilities to prepare for employment.
- Recent developments within the past year of AI in the workplace.
As demand for skilled engineers continues to rise, engineering programs must evolve to engage neurodiverse and underrepresented students through intentional, inclusive design. Our initiative, Internships Designed with Engineering Autistic Students in Mind (IDEAS in Mind), broadens participation and supports belonging among neurodivergent engineering students. Developed in partnership with the University of Arizona Sonoran Center, the College of Engineering, and local employers, the program connects autistic engineering students with industry internships while fostering engineering identity through experiential learning. This presentation will share practical frameworks for building inclusive engineering programs that support neurodiverse students through industry partnerships and intentional program design. Attendees will gain insights applicable to STEM education, career readiness, and disability inclusion initiatives at their own institutions.
Learning Outcomes
- Practical frameworks for building inclusive college programs
- Developing industry partnerships
- The impact of cross-unit collaboration
Tribal Vocational Rehabilitation Personalized Approach to Traditional Holistics (TVR PATH) is a systems visualization tool designed to support Cultural Services provision within TVR programs. Developed through an inclusive, community-driven process involving TVR directors, counselors, and Tribal partners, TVR PATH maps 27 interconnected elements that shape whether participants can achieve their employment goals and fully engage in Cultural Services. It is presented with cultural imagery instead of conventional systems diagram schematics. This session 1) introduces TVR PATH, demonstrates how TVR and state VR professionals can apply it to their work, and shares how programs can personalize it to fit their unique culture and community.
Learning Outcomes
- Describe TVR PATH, how to access it, and how to navigate its main diagram and sub-diagrams.
- Identify applications of TVR PATH for TVR professionals and state VR professionals working across systems.
- Recognize when and how to personalize TVR PATH while honoring key principles.
In this presentation, discover how WorkAbility—an employment services program of UCP of Southern Arizona—is transforming employment opportunities for people with disabilities across Pima, Santa Cruz, and Yuma counties. This dynamic session highlights our journey in implementing Employment First practices, the integration of customized employment throughout all our services, and effective strategies for addressing systemic barriers through advocacy and self determination. You’ll also hear how our partnership with Diverse Ability Incorporated, a youth serving organization, is strengthening employment and other outcomes, to elevate youth voice, leadership, and advocacy efforts through a peer-to-peer service methodology rooted in independent living philosophy. Gain practical tools and fresh insights that will enhance employment services and empower the individuals you support.
Learning Outcomes
- Describe the core components of WorkAbility’s provider transformation and how Employment First practices are being implemented to expand employment opportunities for people with disabilities across multiple counties.
- Explain how customized employment is integrated across WorkAbility’s services and identify strategies that support individualized, meaningful employment outcomes.
- Identify common systemic barriers to employment and apply advocacy and self determination approaches that help address and reduce these barriers.
- Analyze the role of community partnerships, including WorkAbility’s collaboration with Diverse Ability Incorporated, in strengthening transition and employment outcomes, and enhancing community advocacy efforts.
Join us to explore how Arizona Employment First is turning principles into action to improve competitive integrated employment outcomes for people with disabilities. While Employment First has long been embraced as a philosophy, meaningful change requires coordinated systems alignment, consistent messaging, evidence-based practices, and intentional community engagement. This session will highlight Arizona’s cross-agency strategies to strengthen collaboration, expand work-based learning, align policy, and elevate expectations statewide. Participants will gain insight into how systems change, stakeholder collaboration, and a commitment to evidence-based practices can transform employment outcomes. Whether you are a policymaker, provider, educator, or advocate, you will leave with practical strategies to advance Employment First in your own community.
Learning Outcomes
- Describe core Employment First principles and explain their role in advancing competitive integrated employment.
- Identify evidence-based practices that improve employment outcomes for people with disabilities.
- Apply actionable strategies to strengthen Employment First implementation within their own systems or organizations.
