In Bunton, NJ, Linda Mouriello helps to get ready to enter the workplace after leaving school. They learn to set career goals, create restarts and create relationships in the workplace. Sometimes they help look for internships and also get help in the job.
A student with multiple disabilities has been appointed trained in the cafeteria and is still working there five years later. A student with autism is trained in local Wallgrin, learning time management and working with customers. He was appointed and is now in charge of opening the shop.
Mrs. Mauriello is a great fan of the program. “My students really benefited from it,” he said.
However, thousands of students with disabilities do not accept it for the same kind of assistance. Federal and state governments spend about half a billion every year for this national service, but most parents – even some school officials do not even know that the program exists.
In 2023, New Jersey had the lowest ratio of the country – about 2 percent – getting the assistance of qualified students, according to a hiccup report analysis of government information.
For 10 years, the New Jersey program has declined. And the system of decentralized school administration of the state has hindered the efforts to get services in schools.
Interviews with dozens of advocates, academics and parents depict a misleading bureaucratic puzzle, which throw thousands of students without service.
New Jersey officials acknowledged the problem.
“We know that there is not enough people who are fully aware of all our services,” said Charill Yarbru, Assistant Commissioner of Accessible Services in New Jersey and the State Department of Vocational Rehabilitation Services. “Nobody wants to be the best kept secret.”
Throughout the country, only 40 percent of people with disabilities between the ages of 16 and 64 are employed, though experts say that most jobs are capable of retaining. The Congress created a school-age job training program a decade ago, making money to the states.
However, about 20,7 students got some form services – approximately 1.5 million who are eligible – in 2021, the latest year for which national information is available. In New Jersey last year, the number was 1,709 out of more than 5,3 qualified students. New York State is not much successful: It is serving about 5 percent of its eligible students.
When job training programs reach out to students with disabilities, advocates say they are often inadequate and states face little accountability for their errors.
“If the young people have the opportunity to come into contact with the world and they get services in time, they can work independently in the community,” Mourin McGuire-Kulatz, co-director of the George Washington University Center for Rehabilitation, says counseling research and education. “That was hope. If you move to the beginning, some challenges will not exist later. “
Although US Education Department officials have acknowledged that the so-called pre-employment transition services must be available for all disabled students, they noticed that the law does not order that they all access to services. All students do not like to accept it and some are getting their necessary assistance from their school, the Commissioner of the Department’s Rehabilitation Service Administration Danty till last month. Allen said in an email.
In New Jersey, the state government usually uses outside contractors – most non -profit organizations and universities – to provide this national training. It spent $ 14.6 million for federal and state funds in this training in 2023, for which complete data is available last year.
However, many parents are unconscious of what their children are worthy and how they get it.
Bridget Bries did well with Hand-on Work in his high school in Berlington County, son of NJ, made it difficult to read and he fought with textbook-based tests.
Concerned about her future, Mrs Bris tried to get some career assistance before graduation was over. He viewed a Facebook post about the State Coordination Rehabilitation Agency, which served exactly the purpose. But he says that a consultant there told him that he was not worthy of his son until he was 18 – which was untrue.
After graduating last spring, he got a job as a to-truck driver, which he was well and enjoyed. However, all the employees of the company should call on emergency situations overnight. His inability to anxiety terrified him that he would miss a call, so he could not sleep several nights and leave.
Pre-employment training, which he could have taken during high school, could teach him how to ask for a housing or how to explore how to explore his skills and interests. But he never got it. Like his mother – New Jersey’s parents – the program had no idea of existence. He has now applied for social security facilities for him, none of them ever wanted.
“He’s embarrassed,” he said. “My heart breaks for the baby. He wants to work, he wants to do well. I just wish that he could get help when he was in high school. “
Murin Picolie Carne, who launched a transition program at a high school in NJ Rizfield, said counseling was important before determining the job space.
“It’s important because they then know what they like to do,” he said. “They know what their power is. They know how to ask for the workplace to stay in the workplace. “
She has recently worked with a young woman who likes libraries. His inability to develop her from participating in a traditional tihavi college, but she took online courses to become a librarian assistant and got a job in a public library on Long Island.
“She was very excited about the courses,” said Mrs. Carne. “He has a job that he likes and he is being productive and this can happen when you work early with young people.”
For more than 5 years, the Federal Education Act requires schools to help students with disabilities for change outside high school. However, often a school can supply the key and a student has a gap between providing the necessary training or advice. That’s where pre-employment services are supposed to assist.
Prior to 2014, state -of -the -art rehab companies work primarily with adults. This changed when the Congress started the agencies starting at the age of 14 and instructing all disabled students to serve to provide employment to employment.
Most New Jersey students never get the option.
Local teachers say that it is difficult to reach the consultants of excessive state job training and when they do it, the parents and students wait for months to serve for several months. Some consultants say that it is difficult to reach the members of the school staff on their behalf – and some local schools claim that they are already providing everything they need to students.
Some New Jersey School has developed good relations with state consultants, who help students find examination work experience. And some schools provide their own high quality transition services without the help of vocational rehabilitation agencies in the state. In most cases, however, that unhappy system was broken.
Ten years after the federal program is set up, “Everyone is still fighting,” Goen Orolsky, executive director of the unable right New Jersey, says. “It’s simply void” “
The law spends that vocational rehabilitation agencies that are mandatory At least 15 percent Their federal money in employment services for young people. However, many states were asked to provide services to thousands of people without increasing budget.
There are a few consequences for a huge interval of access to services; The policy lawyers blame the lack of supervision by the state and the federal agencies. The Rehabilitation Service Administration conducts the annual review of vocational rehabilitation agencies, but some states go for years to solve the problem.
“We are seeking more oversee,” Julie Christensen says the Association of People is the first executive director to support employment. “It should not be Wild Wild West.”
Federal education officials say the existing monitoring system is leading to improve. In 2021, 23 state laws were spending less than 15 percent required by law. This number has dropped to 10 states in 2022, the most recent year for which data is available.
Senior Joe Sullivan of Colingswood High School, who has Down Syndrome, has since said that he wanted to go to a four -year residential college program, but his mother Kim Brooks said that no one at school had really heard anyone in school.
“I want to go to a college,” Joe said at a cafe near her house. “I want to learn to take classes and be independent.”
Last spring, Mrs. Brooks accidentally learned about a non -profit college preparation program for students with disabilities – she saw it on a friend’s Instagram post. He and Joe have just scrambles to submit the application to programs found through the words of the mouth and through the research hours.
“It’s like a secret society,” said Mrs Brooks. “You don’t know what you don’t know. We’ve really missed many years. “
This is the story Was produced Hiccup reportA non -profit, independent news agency that cover education.
