COLLEGE PARK, MD (October, 2014) Professors Ellen Fabian and Debra Neubert of the Department of Counseling, Higher Education and Special Education have received a grant to establish a national resource center in order to improve vocational rehabilitation outcomes for youths and young adults with disabilities who are transitioning into the workforce.
Funded by a five-year, $4.3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education's National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research, this resource center will be a collaborative effort between several partners. The University of Maryland will work most directly with TransCen, Inc. a nonprofit that develops innovative projects for school-to-work transition, education systems change, and employment for persons with disabilities and prominent social policy research firm Mathematica Policy Research. Other partners include the Institute of Community Inclusion at the University of Massachusetts Boston and the Council of State Administrators of Vocational Rehabilitation.
Youth and young adults with disabilities often need specific help making the transition to becoming employed adults. An important source of this help is the system of state vocational rehabilitation agencies, which provide resources and services to facilitate employment for people with disabilities. The new national resource center will seek to nurture those resources and services by investigating, identifying, and disseminating best practices and strategies to improve vocational rehabilitation outcomes.
Together with their collaborators, Drs. Fabian and Neubert will conduct research, implement graduate training, provide technical assistance, and participate in national dissemination activities on behalf of the center's mission. They view this work as an important expansion of their research and advocacy for improving the lives of youth with disabilities, for which they have both been previously recognized by the UMD President's Commission on Disability Issues.
A certified rehabilitation counselor, Dr. Ellen Fabian is a professor in CHSE's Counseling Psychology, School Psychology and Counselor Education program. Her research focuses on adolescents and adults with disabilities, specifically on designing and evaluating best practices for assisting these populations to maintain successful lives in the community. Dr. Fabian has served as president of the American Rehabilitation Counseling Association and the Maryland Rehabilitation Association, as well as associate editor of the flagship Journal of Counseling & Development.
Dr. Debra Neubert is a professor in CHSE's Special Education program. An expert in secondary special education and transition services for youth and young adults with disabilities, she has been involved in several projects focused on personnel preparation for transition specialists and secondary special educators and on outreach activities for implementing programs for students with significant disabilities on college campuses. Dr. Neubert has co-authored four books on transition education and services for students with disabilities.
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