Florida

How can ADRCs increase their outreach and strengthen their relationship with diverse populations and community-based organizational partners? This brief provides an overview of cultural competence including its definition and how it can be best implemented. Also included are key demographics, barriers to culturally competent service provision, organizational assessment tools, practices and standards, and a list of cultural competence resources that may be useful for ADRC staff.

While long term care costs continue to rise nationally, the cost for in-home care is rising at a much slower pace. Complete national and state cost of care data can be found in the full report. Other reports include an Executive Summary of key findings, detailed methodology information and listings of counties involved in the survey. Also find an interactive map detailing costs within each state.

Find two fact sheets; the first presents occupational employment projections for the three job titles that make up the direct-care workforce: nursing assistants, home health aides, and personal and home care aides, and suggests that over the next decade, the nation’s direct-care workforce will constitute the largest, fastest-growing group of jobs in the country. The second provides a detailed overview of the demographic and economic characteristics of the direct-care workforce.

View an evaluation and grantee-written descriptions of Job Access and Reverse Commute (JARC) and New Freedom services for 2007 and 2008. JARC was established to address transportation challenges that welfare recipients and low-income individuals face in finding and keeping jobs. The New Freedom program was established to provide new public transportation services and alternatives to public transportation for people with disabilities.

Providers play a key role in the success of MIG grant programs. Their understanding of how the MIG grant works and who to contact is essential in keeping services running efficiently. Florida provided training information to its providers, explaining MIG values, functions and important resources. The attached presentation is part of this training and could be helpful to other states with MIG grants.

Diversity Training is key to providing an inclusive climate in the workplace for disabled workers, as well as for creating these opportunities in the first place. The attached presentations are part of Florida’s Agency for Persons with Disabilities training curriculum. Intended to highlight the positive impacts working has on the disabled and on the workplace, these presentations are for employers and could be useful to other MIG grantees as well.

How can states more effectively accommodate employment for the disabled? One approach Florida has taken is training Supported Living Assistants in their roles and responsibilities, emphasizing working closely with employment coaches. The attached training presentation focuses on communication, maintaining benefits and reporting wages. This training tool could be useful to other MIG grantees with similar programs.

What are you going to do after High School? As part of its MIG grant, Florida's Agency for Persons with Disabilities asked this question in a presentation to disabled teenagers about to graduate high school. By presenting a need for qualified workers, the importance of work on self-esteem and the resources to facilitate this transition, Florida is working to get more of its young disabled population into the workforce. This could be helpful to other states interested in this demographic.

It’s not just a matter of semantics or being “politically correct”. The language we use reflects how we feel about disability. The words you use can create either a positive view of people with disabilities or it can reinforce common myths. In this training document developed as part of Florida’s MIG grant program, communicating with people with disabilities is discussed in-depth and could be applicable to employers and service providers alike.

Explore the website for an initiative designed to make the business case for employers to hire people with disabilities by providing them with information, tools to integrate people with disabilities into the workforce, and local resources to help them access this segment of the labor pool. The site includes individual state pages to connect interested businesses to each state’s resources for recruiting and hiring people with disabilities, and tools such as a Tax Incentives Tip Sheet.