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This podcast focuses on the Virginia Commonwealth University Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Employment of Persons with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities grant-funded project. It features interviews with the project's director, research study leads, and steering committee members discussing the research and training of the project. The new podcast will release episodes on the second Monday of each month over the next five years.
Greetings and welcome to another fantastic episode of Zooming into Focus, a podcast that explores and highlights the research and training developed by the Virginia Commonwealth University Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on employment of persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities project. I am your host Lucian Friel from VCU RRTC. On this episode, we will be talking with principal investigator of research study 3, Dr. Timothy Tanzy. Dr. Tanzy received his PhD in rehabilitation psychology from the University of Wisconsin Madison, where he is also a professor in the rehabilitation counselor education program. Dr. Tanzy has almost 30 years of experience as a rehabilitation counselor, educator, and rehabilitation researcher. He has published over 130 peer-reviewed articles in the areas of applying evidence-based practices in vocational rehabilitation, elevating novel technologies for vocational rehabilitation, and rehabilitation counselor education and self-determination. Dr. Tanzy is the principal investigator on the vocational rehabilitation technical assistance center for quality employment, a project sponsored by the US Department of Education. In research study 3, Tim and his team will expand and refine a tech prep program to increase technology-based career focused skills in youth with intellectual and developmental disabilities. And he's here to talk to us about it. Welcome to the podcast, Tim. Thank you. Thank you for the invitation to be here today. Absolutely. It's great having you. you are the third principal investigator that we're having up here for your research study number three. and so let's dive right into it. can you tell us about your study? of course. So this study was we call it tech prep but it's really the careers and technology preparation program. the nature of the study was trying to increase the representation of individuals with disabilities in careers in technology. and again focus has been recognizing that this is a growth area. It's a high-level industry and there's a definite need for more individuals to participate in it and wanted to make sure that individuals with disabilities a knew about it and had access to it. That's excellent. Tim. so if I'm not mistaken, you all have done some research before with tech prep intervention. what did your team learn about the tech prep intervention from the previous study? Yeah, this is actually a scaleup of an earlier intervention conducted under another rehabilitation research and training center on employment of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities program. that project was based out of Chicago. a wonderful experience kind of working with businesses and individuals and school systems in the city of Chicago. I think you know the things that we learned specifically involvement of the school districts early on getting them engaged in the project working effectively with families as families you know tend to be their own gatekeepers as far as what youth participants are going to participate in or not participate in. And then I think you know lastly is really trying to find ways to keep participants engaged throughout the project. So there's a didactic kind of training component, developmental component and then there is an internship component. Generally we kind of break these into two major structures. everyone wants to get to the internship component, but we want to get them to a point where when you're in that office setting, when you're interacting with professionals in the area, when you're talking about what your needs might be or how to approach different pieces and how to communicate, we found that it's that's an important part, but it's, you know, it's kind of like waiting for the best part of the movie. You got to get through the first part so you know where things are at until you can get to that point. And I think that was the part of just making sure you maintain and do what you can to maintain engagement throughout the process. Well, speaking of internships, what are some of the types of internships that are going to be involved in the research? Yeah, and that's a good question. so really depends on the businesses in the local area. So, you know, what type of employers exist, what they're looking for, and then ultimately it's who has the forward vision to look at getting involved in this type of project. The two areas of the current study, one is in Virginia in the Hampton area, and then the second is in Spokane. both of those areas certainly have a predominant number of businesses that have a tech focus, whether it be a tech company, and I'll pick on a Dell or a Google or one of those. all the way to the, you know, the business that while they may not be a specific technology company, there may be in a STEM field or they may have a STEM division or they may have a component that makes that business operate. So really I think that it's a fairly broad expanse, but with the focus of if you're going to go and work for an accounting firm let's say what does that accounting firm doing in terms of their IT or their technical support or what are some of the things that they might be asking individuals to do in support of that overall accounting business. So fairly broad group. the original group I can tell you in terms of Chicago that we kind of patterned this off of is a essentially a social media company, a company that's designing and developing platforms specific for engaging individuals with disabilities in a broad range of different opportunities. And so again looking at you know there they were doing programming, they were doing coding, they were doing checking, they were doing social media. looking at, I think, a diversity of options so that we can really align what the internship piece looks like to the individual's interests and what they're focused on to make sure that there's the best match possible and so they get the most out of it. That's awesome. I'm a huge tech nerd, so this is an exciting topic for me in particular. who's going to be involved in the study and how were they recruited or selected?
So involvement really is again individuals younger individuals with intellectual developmental disabilities generally looking at ages of 16 to 24 with the idea of we want to catch individuals as they're kind of in that career development exploration phase. We want to get them thinking about, hey, this career is possible and how do I move into it and what does it look like so that they have a more crystallized idea of what some of the range of these different occupations may look like. As far as recruitment, recruitment usually begins with attending an orientation session or an Informational session at the local school or receiving a flyer that's come home in the mail from school or even word of mouth. I've got a friend, they told me about it and I'm really interested in it. And then I think the selection process really is you know a individuals have to you know submit an application. We can't just you know and voluntarily tell people hey you're going to be in this project but they have to complete an application and a lot of that comes back to the family actually talking about is this the right process you know do we want to engage in this because it is going to be there is an impact on the family. It's the idea of we have to arrange for them to be able to attend the after school kind of training program. we have to think about our summer schedules and you know how do we get this per how do we get our young adult into that business or if it's remote do we have the capacity at home to support it and so you we kind of you know there's all that process we go through in terms of the initial recruitment and then selection again this is you know I think it's individuals who meet the study criteria that they're of the right age they have certainly an intellectual developmental disability they're you know, committed to doing both the dactic program as well as the internship. there is a randomized control feature to it though. So, unfortunately, not everyone that says, "Hey, I'd like to participate." We can do that because we want to show proof of concept. And the best way to show that proof of concept is kind of track people, look at kind of how their you know, different things unfold. It's a function of did participating in this program, did it improve their engagement in these types of careers? Did they look at this? Did it help them kind of think about what they'd want to do for that next job? Did it get them into some type of post-secondary education training program? And so, you know, unfortunately, we have to, you know, to do that and really kind of say that this is better than what's happening now. we do use a control group. And so, unfortunately, it just comes down to a manner of random selection of some individuals are ultimately asked to be a part of the group. on the others. We unfortunately have to say that, you know, this isn't the time, but we appreciate you, you know, continue to participate. We have ways for you to continue to be involved, but just won't be necessarily going through the program as you know, they might have hoped at one point, right? And so with every all the different research questions that you have, how are you measuring and collecting the data? Yeah. So, we do a series of data collections throughout the process and then there's post evaluation data. So, we use one of these, you know, pretty common online survey tools and as individuals go in for intake, we ask them to complete something there. As they complete the dactic program, we ask them to take it again. So, we can kind of look at what impact is that program having. And then after they've gone through the internship process, we want to look at what are they looking at after the internship. And really what we're looking is for is that developmental aspect of the individuals developing over time and a lot of the measures are structured around social cognitive career theory with the idea of if we want to look at individuals who are going to engage in certain careers or spend the time and energy to get more involved towards a career path. You always think about that it starts off with things like is this person have a high level of let's say outcome expectations. So if I do try to get a job in this area, I'm going to be successful at it and I like it. And we want to see that grow over time. you know, we recognize that any job is hard work and jobs that are highly technical in nature can be even greater difficulty. And so it's the idea of how do we persist at those jobs when jobs get difficult. So we're going to be looking at things like goal persistence’s. Do individuals report greater goal persistence over time? you know, we also look at, you know, measures that really get at are they feeling like they're making good better choices. So, we think about a tonomy or have the capacity to make those choices. So, are they increasing in the idea that I can self-direct? I can go into this career if I want to. And if I don't want to, that's okay. But I feel like I at least have the ability to make some of those choices now than I had before. And learning more about these careers, you know, do I think I'll be good at it? I mean, that's the big piece is we don't want to go into a career that we're just not going to be effective in that in that career based on the materials, you know, data, people, things that you have to do in those career spaces. and so what we're trying to get at through this whole process is are they thinking like are they feeling like a greater level of competence both for in terms of being in those type of careers and then being a part of the work-force in those. So being around people that have those similar interests or similar fosi as far as yeah, I know I'm going to like the job and I'm going to like the people in the job because I got a chance to meet some of them or what they're actually doing. And it's all those things together that really promote that career path. So tracking all those things on a regular basis and ultimately kind of seeing them get to that point is what we get excited about. In terms of post evaluation, we you know we do like to follow up with people a year after two years after they've kind of gone through the program and you know just ask those questions of hey are you working? Okay, where are you working at? you know, can you tell me more about that job and kind of how this project maybe got them more interested in a STEM kind of area job or did they say you know what it I didn't really like that but I learned that as a part of the project and so I got a job but I'm working here but I got the confidence from the project to do any job and you really kind of focus on my passions. we also love seeing when individuals will come back to us at a year later and say no I'm not working but I'm going I'm in school right now. I'm actually going to get an advanced degree in coding, in accounting, in whatever that field is because it it's taken them from I don't know what I'm going to be doing next to now I have a vision and a purpose and a direction and seeing that fulfilled through post-secondary education really gives them the opportunity to kind of think about making those career choices that work best for them down the road. That's awesome. It's kind of like a you don't know what you don't know until you find out, you know, like they get into the internship and maybe say like, "Okay, well, I really like this, but I don't have the maybe I need some more technical training." And that that's great that those types of things happen, too. what is the importance of this study for individuals with IDD? I think the primary importance I would say is the impact on expectations. To what extent do the individual with IDD feel like they could go into these type of careers and will be accepted. I think it's that it's can we change family expectations for their young adult in terms of hey we see a different career path. that isn't going to be that unskilled kind of you know drop in type of job that has very little future and you know is probably you know not the best outcomes for most individuals. I think the other piece that we've learned from other research has been you know what is the impact on the business? How are we changing their expectations? are we changing their expectations of what individuals with intellectual developmental disabilities can do and opening up further doors. So it's you know the idea of you can look at it from a micro level on the individual to a little bit larger with the family unit to the societal impact in terms of business is saying hey this is a great program this is a great we need to really think about how we're approaching recruitment and really think about that this is probably a group that we're not effectively you know recruiting. Does it mean they're going to do the exact same work that every other employee has? No potentially but maybe not. Does it mean that we can't find valuable ways that they can be business centric and business supportive? That just requires us to rethink kind of what we've identified as a job in the past, but that they can take on those technical pieces with the right structures and the right training. It's those expectations and changing those expectations and knowledge base that we think can have a dramatic impact. again studies focused on the individual but I can tell you as this type of program works you see much larger kind of circles or spheres of impact as a function of it and with that do you think that this is going to impact some of the businesses that are a part of the program or that are a part of the research yeah definitely I think it's I don't think you come away from this with you know and again it's the business kind of you know taking a step back and what we find is you know generally everybody has interactions with persons with intellectual developmental disabilities. It could be our own children. It could be a family you know relative. It could be a family friend. and I think it's generally everyone will ask that question of you know what is this what's a long-term picture look like? Where are things going to head down the road? And I think it's that idea of you know we see a lot of business owners where it's you know I was thinking about this not because of my own children but because of close friends and they just don't know how to get started And this is getting a sense of how and what's possible. And I think it's that growth that they see that you start seeing you know again it's the we'll call the bunny hutch phenomenon. You get an idea planted at one business and then people from that business might go to other businesses and say, "Well, why aren't we doing what the last job I worked at? Why aren't we doing this type of program?" And then you start seeing these programs proliferate very, very quickly. And because again, everyone wants to have a market advantage. They want to hire high-quality people. This program provides them with another labor resource that's largely underutilized, but then gives them the opportunity to showcase that. Beyond that, it's the idea of I think every company and in in every business looks at how do I retain my talent? How do I retain the employees that I have and I think most employees will look at well what is the commitment of the organization to me? I mean again right today I may be doing well tomorrow I may not be doing as well and might need some supports and engaging these programs is really a signal to all the employees of the value of everyone working for us and how we try to make sure that we're going to keep people and maintain our talent base. So there's again all these ripples in the pond effect that you have as these things go through. Hey there zooming into focus listeners. Do you have questions for us about the research? Head on over to IDD.VCURRTC.org
and go to the ask us button underneath the search bar of the main navigation. From there, you can ask us your questions about the research. Or if you need technical assistance and need to be pointed in the direction of training and resources that best suit your needs, you can ask us questions there and our technical assistance team will guide you to the training and resources that best suit your needs. But for now, let's jump back into the podcast. How do you think the project is going to impact the field and people with disabilities kind of overall? In terms of the field, I think there's a tremendous potential for the field. we tend to think about career development and some of the things that we're doing in this project as we're going to talk with people about, you know, how to be involved in the work-place in a generic fashion. It changes when you actually start saying someone said they're interested in this specific kind of STEM field. Well, why don't we introduce the training of when you're in that hospital, when you're in that technology company, when you're doing that IT work, when you're doing what-ever it is that this person's identify as being more pertinent to their interests, why not center our subsequent training around those interests versus staying very generic and I think often confusing people about, well, I don't know how I'm going to apply this in this field. it doesn't there's a disconnect and it and I think it creates more confusion than anything. So I think as we start looking at how do we tailor our approaches as far as how to advocate, how to think about careers, how to communicate within those careers, how to work alongside with others and network effectively, having that lens of in this specific career, I think is going to be a dramatic shift as far as how things are doing in the field as a whole. I think for individuals with disabilities again I think we'll say universally people have become and expecting things more tailored to them and so and just as again individuals with disabilities overall it's well don't provide me with the general training I know what field I want to go into can you give me any of the additional soft skills to be effective in this area and there is a range of soft skills as far as what's required in one job versus another and So the more we kind of identify and really align what we do from services to what people are asking for, the more the more satisfied they're going to be with services, the more engaged they're going to be and ultimately the better outcomes I think we're going to see. what are you and the team most looking forward to during this study? I mean I know that this particular study is involved with a lot of different partnerships, right? like we've got, you know, you from University of Wisconsin Madison. can you talk about some of the other people that are involved in the study and then what are you all looking forward to the most do you think? Yeah, Sure. Again, great team. and again, I would say really led by Lauren Avalone at Virginia Commonwealth University there. also involves Holly Wittenberg and Josh Taylor at Washington State University and they're really running the scale up sites. So the both the Virginia and Washington sites you know worked with all of them for years and they're a great group of people and it you know first of all it's always great to show up to work and having such passionate, intelligent, hard-working people around you makes the career and the job so much better. I can tell you the part that I look forward most to these is the interaction with the young adults and their families. hearing them where they come in and they're very tentative and not sure about, you know, what options they might have in front of them to the end where they're telling you their success stories. They're excited. They're actually talking about not just, hey, I used this piece here at my internship, but I'm using it in school today. So when the you know when I had to actually advocate for myself when I had to actually talk with people I felt more comfortable in doing that. I felt a greater level of capacity to get involved in that. So it's really just you know I'd say it's the direct interactions with you know participants and their families and then just seeing I think the growth that we see as a function of the entire process. those are the parts that are just you know it's like hey that's what gets you up in the morning. It keeps you excited about the project even when it's like, hey, we got more work to do here. We have a lot of things that that are on the agenda. those are things that really drive home what we why we do this work and why we get so much joy out of it. Excellent. And a lot of the names you mentioned, I'm sure we'll catch up with them down the road on this podcast as well. what can we look forward to as consumers of the study? Is there sort of an end product or an end idea or what are some of the things that we can look forward to as this study goes along? Sure. I think if you're if they're a consumer in the study, I would hope that at the end they are either, you know, have a job in this type of career area that we're trying to promote, or that it's led them to a career in general that they found that this isn't the right one, but they it helped align them to a career that's better suited for their interests and they had the skill set to actually go and engage and get into that career path. and that might mean that they're directly working or they're going to again getting additional schooling in that area. I think as far as you know more broadly is really thinking about how as we start you know making some of these changes and showing some of the efficacy of this type of work. looking at how this again changes approaches in general in terms of pre-employment transition services in terms of how counselors kind of work with individuals to identify what does that plan for employment look like and how to work with people along that pathway. and recognizing that there's different structures that you can put into place that again come back to that more engaged individual specialize it to their specific interests and needs and then ultimately has that pervasive impact. So that when that consumer in you know you Lucian this word I can always say is in a perfect world we would not need vocation rehabilitation services somebody would be able to go into a business and say I think I'm a good fit for this job here's the skill set that I have here are the things that I can do really well here are things that I would need support with or that can we kind of you know share and do some different things around and that the business would say yes we can do that let's get in we want to hire you that that's you know that's the That's the vision is, you know, that idea of full inclusion at work and that we wouldn't need VR service anymore because the business would say, "Yeah, we can figure this out and let's get this in and get this person hired." We're not there yet. But I think anything that bends us towards that arc, towards that vision is a good outcome. And that's what ultimately I I'm realistic that I don't think we'll be there as a society after this project. But if we we've moved in that direction I that's and consumers feel like when they go in and the first question from the business isn't well what are your limitations it's hey what are the things that you do well and how can we support you to be successful. It's that if we can start seeing that shift in that approach by businesses and really having individual consumers going in and feeling like this person wants me to be there and excited to interview me and give me an opportunity because I have the talent that they're looking for. That's kind of where we want to get to in the next couple years. Right. And that sounds like I mean it's not just impactful on individuals with IDD but for just individuals without disabilities as well. It sounds like that would be helpful to have businesses have that approach with all of their employees. Oh, I agree. I mean, I think disability is a universal experience and it's across the continuum and there are things that we wouldn't classify as disabilities but certainly affect individuals in terms of their ability to obtain and retain employment which is a critical factor of our adult identities. And so the things that we do here often have, you know, benefits there just like we think about universal design of accessibility. It benefits individuals with mobility limitations, but it also benefits all those individuals doing deliveries and people who, you know, for whatever reason are having, you know, having pain, they can't get up that step. Well, because of that curb cut that was put in for the individuals that with maybe using a wheelchair for ambulation assistance, it's this piece. we move towards this universal understanding and acceptance and approach that's where we I think move truly forward as a society to that next level and I think once we get to that point um it's it will change the nature of work as we know it'll change our competitiveness on a worldwide market because keeping individuals once you've trained them and developing that talent and maintaining it is always so much more beneficial effective, efficient and product productive relative to anything else that we might do in terms of not thinking about those kind of initiatives. Awesome. Well, Tim, thank you so much. You've helped us zoom into focus on research study number three. if you wouldn't mind later on down the road, come back on and, you know, update us on all the goings on of the project. No. Well, thank you for the opportunity to come and talk to you today and yeah, look forward to seeing you in the future and giving you an update. Awesome. Thank you, Tim. And thank you all for joining us today. The contents of this podcast were developed under a grant from the National Institute on Disability Independent Living and Rehabilitation Research. NIDILRR grant number 90 M0013. NIDILRR is a center within the Administration for Community Living, the ACL, Department of Health and Human Services, HHS. The contents of this podcast do not necessarily represent the policy of NIDILRR, ACL, HHS, and you should not assume endorsement by the federal government. Again, thank you for joining us.