Located in:
- Program-Specific Requirements for Vocational Rehabilitation (Combined or General)
The Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) Services Portion of the Unified or Combined State Plan [13] must include the following descriptions and estimates, as required by section 101(a) of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended by title IV of WIOA:
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[13] Sec. 102(b)(2)(D)(iii) of WIOA
p. 2. B. Describe the factors that impeded the achievement of the goals and priorities
Current Narrative:
(B) Describe the factors that impeded the achievement of the goals and priorities.
During PY 2018, DORS served 5327 individuals with supported employment identified as a service on their IPEs, which exceeded the goal to serve 4,000. During PY19, DORS and the Maryland Behavioral Health Administration (BHA) have been updating the Memorandum of Understanding to meet the requirements under WIOA, specifically, the process for serving youth with serious and persistent mental illness. The cooperative agreement addresses referrals between agencies, specifies shared responsibilities for funding of supported employment, as well as cross-training for staff. This agreement, which identifies the roles and responsibilities of both partners at the state and local level, will further strengthen the collaborative relationship between both agencies. DORS anticipates finalizing this agreement in 2020.
DORS and the Maryland Behavioral Health Administration have been working to streamline the VR application process by identifying required data elements that may be collected prior to referral to increase efficiency. In the past year, Maryland Behavioral Health Administration has begun to migrate from their current case management system (Beacon) to a new system (Optum). During this transition, DORS has developed temporary policies to mitigate disruption. Supported Employment (SE) providers serving individuals in the Public Behavioral Health System have historically completed and submitted an application for services with the Division of Rehabilitation Services (DORS) through the Administrative Services Organization (ASO). However, because of technical challenges that are being addressed, DORS and BHA have collaborated to establish a temporary process for completing and submitting the DORS application for jointly served individuals. This temporary process may be applied to individuals whose applications for supported employment were not able to be referred to DORS due to technical difficulties with BHA’s current case process and system migration.