July 18, 2024 By CDHD New CDHD project: Idaho Competitive Integrated Employment Center Recently the Idaho CDHD was awarded a grant from the Rehabilitation Services Administration Disability Innovation Fund to create a Pathway to Partnership project. Under the leadership of Dr Janice Carson (ICIE Director, Interim CDHD Associate Director), the Idaho Competitive Integrated Employment (ICIE) Center was established. We’re excited to announce the ICIE Center officially kicked off this summer, with the vision of a community where talent knows no boundaries, and every individual contributes their unique strengths to a thriving, inclusive community. The ICIE Center will work to enhance partnerships between state, regional and local partners with a goal to: improve secondary transition services for children and youth with disabilities, and increase competitive integrated employment. This will be achieved through a statewide staff focused on four main goals: Develop statewide interagency partnerships Create coordinated delivery of effective transition planning and services. Develop comprehensive statewide systems of support to deliver services. Evaluate and report on the results of grant work. To put it simply, this project is helping youth with disabilities transition to life after school by providing meaningful opportunities to build skills, engage with their communities and find jobs. This will be achieved by assisting in the development of a statewide system of support. This system will help youth and families develop knowledge and skills to not only plan an effective transition, but also thrive within this new chapter of their lives. To help ensure this system offers seamless support and services, the project is firmly focused on interagency collaboration, outreach and community networking. Through strong interagency partnerships, the ICIE Center will be able to coordinate and facilitate the most effective transition planning and services across Idaho. The project offers support to youth aged 10-24, families and their community partners. ICIE staff have already conducted a statewide resource mapping meeting with the Idaho Interagency Council on Secondary Transition. Support was provided by the Idaho Department of Education and the National Technical Assistance Center on Transition: The Collaborative. The purpose of this meeting was to discuss state resources that are available and/or needed. ICIE staff and project partners will use the information gathered to identify missing resources and design a plan to fill those gaps. They also began mapping out a timeline for the development and sharing of these resources. In addition, the project is working on building local interagency teams that will work together to help children and youth build skills that will translate to employment environments. ICIE staff have already begun establishing relationships with local education agencies, Idaho’s Centers for Independent Living, Idaho Parents Unlimited and Idaho Vocational Rehabilitation to help make this happen. The ICIE Center’s digital presence is also underway. They are working with the Idaho Training Clearinghouse on a new website and online resource library. More information on that is coming soon.