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Best Practices in Job Development

• Prepared for the Homeless Veterans Reintegration
  Project
• by
• Gary Shaheen, Managing Director for Program
  Development
• Syracuse University Burton Blatt Institute
• geshahee_at_syr.edu

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Todays Topics

• Supply Side Tips and Tools
• Work fast- Using outreach tools to explore
  employment
• Customizing the job development process
• Support for job development
• Demand Side Tips and Tools
• Understanding employers needs
• Tips and Tools for employer marketing 
• Checklist - Key steps in improving job development

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When should job development start?

• Old paradigm Wait until people are permanently
  housed, clean and sober, symptom-free, etc, etc
  before you provide help getting a job
• New paradigm Include conversations about work at
  outreach, early engagement in jobs to build
  trust, hope and motivation to change, customize
  to address job-seeker and employersneeds

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What we know

• Job development is more than just job placement
• The best work readiness services are those that
  get people into jobs quickly
• Jobs that they choose and want
• Jobs in real work settings for real pay
• Jobs with pre-and post employment supports
• Employment services should address both
• The supply side (our customers interests,
  needs, barriers and opportunities) and
• The demand side (what employers want or need)

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Ongoing Support to Employee Employer for
Retention, Advancement
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Customized Planning for Job-Seekers who are
Homeless Should Address

• Concrete barriers, i.e., access to laundry,
  showers, clothing
• Lack of fixed address for mail or telephone to
  receive and return messages
• Personal humiliation and lack of self-esteem
• Criminal histories
• Poor employment histories
• Lack of Transportation
• Focus on immediate needs vs. longer term goals
• Impact of lifestyle change
• Managing housing stability/recovery and work
• Unclear expectations/inadequate information
• Physical health

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Some principles of job development for homeless
Vets

• Job development starts at outreach
• Job retention planning starts early
• Operationalize choice
• Capitalize on strengths gained through survival
• Address unique needs and issues faced by Vets
• Job development means addressing fundamental
  issues of poverty through employment and asset
  accumulation
• Job development is best done with employers as
  partners
• Rapid job search rather than extensive
  pre-vocational requirements equals better
  outcomes
• Provide comprehensive, wrap-around and continuous
  supports
• Use evidence based and promising practices with
  fidelity to ensure better outcomes

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Job development starts at outreach

• Make work part of the conversation about engaging
  in services
• Prompt and listen to peoples stories about jobs
  they had and jobs they may want
• Encourage stories that help the individual to see
  unidentified yet transferable skills
• Provide information
• Assess the value of an offer of work as a hook
  to influence positive change
• Understand the stages of change
• Tell-Show-Do

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Job retention planning starts early

• Create a retention plan
• Help to identify triggers
• Be clear with employees and employers about your
  role
• Participate in the Integrated Services Team to
  troubleshoot retention
• Meet with employees in comfortable,
  non-stigmatizing places off the job
• Encourage (or require) meetings on a consistent,
  regular basis
• Debrief after work
• Help to problem-solve through counseling, role
  playing, reviewing assessments and employment
  plans

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Re-Entry Issues affecting job development and
retention

• When to disclose a criminal record?
• How to advise on disclosing a criminal record?
• What about resources for expungment?
• Clean Slate Program, San Francisco Public
  Defenders Office, 555 Seventh St., San Francisco
  415-553-9337
• More resources on the Web
• www.reentrypolicy.org
• www.etcny.org Exodus Transitional Community
• www.dol.gov/cfbci/ready4work.html

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Operationalizing Choice

• Job Preferences
• Type of job
• Location business type
• Size of employer
• Self-employment?
• Proximity to specific services, public
  transportation
• Income expectations
• Effect on benefits?

• Support
• Self-represent or represented
• Accommodations
• Access to training
• Budgeting
• Preparatory skills
• Ongoing counseling and support
• Transportation
• Clothes

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Capitalize on strengths gained through survival

• What are the skills I gained and used to survive
  on the streets and in shelters?
• Do employers need these types of skills?
• Are they skills that are relevant to
  self-employment?
• Who helps me in my recovery and what do they
  provide?
• Do I need similar help as part of my employment
  team?
• From your knowledge of your community-where are
  the jobs?

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Rapid job search rather than extensive
pre-vocational requirements equals better
outcomes (Excerpted from Supported Employment
Evidence Based Practices Kit)

• Beginning the job search early demonstrates that
  you take their desire for work seriously
• Looking for jobs early can help to confront fears
  about work
• Rapid job development takes advantage of
  consumers current motivation
• By exploring job options and learning more about
  real work requirements and settings, consumers
  learn more about their preferences

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Address unique needs and issues faced by Vets

• Service-related trauma
• Integrated treatment, job development and
  supportive services
• Service related skills
• Identify skills that are present, transferable,
  applicable to the job goal and include in job
  development plan
• Service related benefits
• Integrate Vets benefits, SSI/DI advisement on an
  ongoing basis in job development and retention
  planning

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Job development means addressing fundamental
issues of poverty through employment and asset
accumulation

• Assets (owning a home or business, investments,
  savings, property) provide greater financial
  security and independence.
• Assets improve community participation and
  quality of life.
• Saving money and developing assets will produce
  choices about where one lives and impact
• mental and physical health
• positive self-concept
• expectations and status with other community
  stakeholders
• Enduring poverty singularly diminishes freedom,
  opportunity and self-determination
• Provide info and assistance to access Federal tax
  credits (like EITC), financial literacy,
  individual development accounts

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Job development is best done with employers as
partners (adapted from PWI)

• Establish a Business Advisory Council (BAC),
  comprised of representatives of private industry,
  business concerns, One Stop, organized labor, and
  job-seekers that will
• Help identify job and career availability within
  the community, consistent with the current and
  projected local employment opportunities
• Help identify opportunities for self-employment
• Identify the skills necessary to perform those
  jobs and careers
• Help develop training programs designed to
  develop appropriate job, career and
  self-employment skills
• Help arrange or provide
• Training in realistic work settings to prepare
  people for employment and career advancement in
  the competitive labor market or in
  self-employment and
• Understand and implement job accommodations and
  worksite modifications

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Provide comprehensive, wrap-around and continuous
supports

• Professional, peer natural supports
• Understand triggers that can lead to job loss
• Develop a job loss prevention plan
• Develop a career growth plan
• Manage benefits all along the way

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SAMHSAS MODEL FOR EBPsSAMHSA National Registry
of Effective Programs and Practices (NREPP)
http//modelprograms.samhsa.gov

• Evidence-Based Programs
• Conceptually sound and internally consistent
• Program activities related to conceptualization
• Reasonably well implemented and evaluated

• Promising
• Some positive outcomes

• Effective
• Consistently positive outcomes
• Strongly implemented and evaluated

• Model
• Availability for dissemination
• Technical assistance available from program
  developers

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Why Use Evidence Based Approaches?

• Evidence based practices yield better outcomes
• Evidence based programs have fidelity measures
• SAMHSA acknowledges that the evidence base is
  limited in some areas
• SAMHSA supports promising practices where
  evidence of effectiveness is based on
• Formal consensus among recognized experts
• Evaluation studies not yet published

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What evidence-based Supported Employment is NOT

• Work crews
• Sheltered workshops
• Referral out
• Extensive pre-assessment and testing
• Work preparation/skills development
• Transitional employment positions

• One-time placement
• On-site job coaching
• Rehabilitative day treatment
• Generic psychosocial rehabilitation
• Clinical services alone

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Some Tips for Job Development and Placement

• Typical Challenges
• Force-fitting placements to meet program outcomes
• Passive job development
• Not following up on a regular basis with active
  and potential employers
• Focusing on the disability rather than the
  ability
• Starting with tax incentives
• Promising two for one
• Guaranteeing 100 productivity or attendance
• Offering to do all the training and supervision
• Failing to plan for the next step (advancement,
  transition)

• Suggested Responses
• Define features and benefits
• Offer examples to employers of ways part time,
  negotiated or carved jobs has helped an employer
  in the past
• Understand employer training needs, growth jobs
• Help the job seeker break down the job
  development process into attainable steps
• Use peer support and mentors
• Use testimonials and referrals