The Solution
The Employment First Office will be a permanent state office under the California Health and Human Services Agency charged with facilitating the consistent and complete interpretation and implementation of Employment First Policy across the many state agencies and departments providing services to the intellectual and developmental disabilities community.
Used successfully in other states, the Employment First Office will help support and coordinate consistent understanding and application of Employment First Policy statewide.
What is the E1o (Employment 1st Office)
The Employment First Office would participate in the myriad of planning initiatives on Competitive Integrated Employment CIE. Additionally it would help set goals on outcomes, identify/analyze common data points, interact with departmental decision makers and streamline/connect services and funding/ implementation optimizes outcomes. Planning effective E1 initiatives involves an understanding of complex funding and service elements linked across different agencies over the employment lifecycle.
The E1O utilizes high level knowledge of federal and state CIE best practice to:
optimize departmental cost savings/cost sharing
increase vocational outcomes via development of a comprehensive service awareness and engagement campaign
monitor service implementation across departments
assist with data sharing agreements to ensure that a universal identifier can be used to track individuals as they move through the government departments supporting CIE