Disability Program Navigators: Making Employment Connections for Job Seekers with Disabilities - Portland

This video highlights how the Disability Program Navigators (DPN) facilitated the establishment of an Integrated Resource Team (IRT) within the One-Stop Career Center (Worksource Center, Portland, Oregon) to blend and braid resources around an individual customer with disabilities' employment needs. The IRT brings various partners (private and public, mandated and non-mandated) from a myriad of agencies/organizations (e.g., One Stop Career Center, Vocational Rehabilitation Agency, mental health, developmental disabilities, etc.) across multiple systems to leverage resources, coordinate services/programs, and reduce duplication to better serve the individual customer with a disability and/or multiple employment challenges. The ultimate goal of the IRT is to get the person with a disability a job; not just any job but a quality, non-stereotypical job that provides a living wage, career lattice opportunities, benefits, and reflects the individual’s interests, experience, education/training goals, and desires. This video tells the story of how the IRT approach worked to assist a customer, who is deaf, receive training at his local community college and a paid internship, with the goal of finding a higher paying job.