Employment

The Boggs Center has launched a new Online Registration System

The new Online Registration System offers many features such as individual user accounts, calendar of events, training registration, confirmation emails, copies of certificates, and much more.

Potential Employment training courses are listed below.

To view details and register for current training courses, visit:
Boggs Center Online Registration System

Employment Specialist Foundations:
Basic Knowledge and Skills

Employment Specialist Foundations: Basic Knowledge and Skills is the recently redesigned certification series for New Jersey employment specialists/job coaches. It is a regularly updated four-day series of interactive, competency-based workshops designed for beginning Employment Specialists working for a DVRS Supported Employment Vendor and/or DDD Community Service Provider offering Supported Employment Services. The content would also be beneficial to school job coaches and transition coordinators. Participants will learn best-practice, evidence-based approaches to all phases of supported employment services (assessment and discovery, job development, job coaching, and follow along for job retention). The course is designed to prepare otherwise qualified staff for The Certified Employment Support Professional (CESP) exam by providing an overview of the five core areas identified as crucial for ability to work as a supported employment specialist.

While staff will benefit most by participating in the four training days sequentially, the series is designed so that each day’s content exists as a distinct, stand-alone learning experience. For each day, participants will receive a certificate of attendance. An individual will not be considered to have met the DDD/DVRS vendor requirements for competency in supported employment services until after the successful completion of all four days. It will be the responsibility of the agency to ensure staff meets the four-day participation requirements.

Employment Specialist Foundations Day 1: Assessment/Discovery Phase

An overview and history of community-based employment and how-to strategies for effective job seeker assessment/discovery phase to maximize future job matching

Note: This training is currently ONLY open to employees of CBVI, DDD, and DVRS, DDD/Medicaid Approved Providers, DVRS approved vendors, and individuals with disabilities and family members.

Employment Specialist Foundations Day 2: Job Development Phase

An introduction to job development including marketing strategies, negotiating with employers, analyzing worksites and customizing employment to facilitate good job matching

Note: This training is currently ONLY open to employees of CBVI, DDD, and DVRS, DDD/Medicaid Approved Providers, DVRS approved vendors, and individuals with disabilities and family members.

Employment Specialist Foundations Day 3: Job Coaching Phase

An examination of learning styles, direct and systematic instruction on the job site (task analysis, hierarchy of prompts, teaching to natural and artificial cues, error correction, etc.) and data collection

Note: This training is currently ONLY open to employees of CBVI, DDD, and DVRS, DDD/Medicaid Approved Providers, DVRS approved vendors, and individuals with disabilities and family members.

Employment Specialist Foundations Day 4: Long Term Follow Along Phase

A familiarization with the purposes, strategies and documentation of long term follow along supports to boost retention as well as an introduction to employment and the ADA, benefits and employment, and “typicalness” research and employment

Note: This training is currently ONLY open to employees of CBVI, DDD, and DVRS, DDD/Medicaid Approved Providers, DVRS approved vendors, and individuals with disabilities and family members.

Meaningful Day Services

Meaningful Days Leading to Fulfilling Lives

Expectations for service delivery are changing within our state to continue to mirror national trends and consumer preferences.  Through this training professionals working in day programs will develop a better understanding of what is driving the change in service expectations and the role of the direct support professional in implementing these changes. Participants will explore how the services they provide should be defined by the provision of quality experiences that lead to more fulfilling lives for program participants and more welcoming attitudes in the greater community. The training is designed to encourage day staff to think creatively about services, support strategies, advocacy, and the development of community capacity.

Note: This training is currently ONLY open to employees of CBVI, DDD, and DVRS, DDD/Medicaid Approved Providers, DVRS approved vendors, and individuals with disabilities and family members.

Employment Specialist Supplemental

Employment Specialist Supplemental: A Job Coach's Guide to Teaching Professionalism

Employment Specialist Supplemental: Customer Service for the Employment Specialist

Customer service is an integral part of a successful employment services agency.  This course will assist Employment Specialists to identify all of the customers that receive their services as well as describe strategies that will facilitate effective customer service.  Methods of measuring customer satisfaction will be introduced and how those methods connect with continuous quality improvement will be stressed.

Note: This training is currently ONLY open to employees of CBVI, DDD, and DVRS, DDD/Medicaid Approved Providers, DVRS approved vendors, and individuals with disabilities and family members.

Employment Specialist Supplemental: Customizing Job Development - An Introduction
to What It Is and How It's Done

An increasingly complex job market calls for a more sophisticated approach to job development. This approach is always person-centered and relies on a comprehensive discovery of the job seeker’s skills, interests, strengths, preferences and support needs. The effectiveness of Customized Job Development has been supported by empirical research for years and this workshop will explore the evidence-based, best practice strategies for conducting truly Customized Job Development. This workshop is designed for DDD-approved vendors and other interested parties but will not meet the DVRS requirements for vendors seeking to become approved providers of DVRS-funded customized employment services.

Note: This training is currently ONLY open to employees of CBVI, DDD, and DVRS, DDD/Medicaid Approved Providers, DVRS approved vendors, and individuals with disabilities and family members.

Employment Specialist Supplemental: Documentation

Employment Specialist Supplemental: Ethical Issues in Supported Employment

Employment specialists are often in difficult situations where decision making is challenged by opposing demands, voices, and values. This session will explore the guidelines that should be used to ensure ethical decision making by exploring our professional codes of ethics. Participants will examine common ethical themes that should be utilized to guide decisions in their day-to-day work. Additionally, they will be given ample opportunity to apply an ethical decision making tool to challenging ethical dilemmas in order to come to the best possible resolution. 

Note: This training is currently ONLY open to employees of CBVI, DDD, and DVRS, DDD/Medicaid Approved Providers, DVRS approved vendors, and individuals with disabilities and family members.

Employment Specialist Supplemental: Financial Literacy Training

Financial literacy and money management training is a critical component that is often missing from job preparation for individuals with disabilities. Earning a living through employment is often cited as the road to independence, but proper management of those earnings is how we access our needs, wants, items, and opportunities. This supplemental will focus on the foundational elements of financial literacy, including: assessing money values, creating person-centered monetary goals, conservative budgeting, retirement plans, Social Security benefits considerations, and more. Participants will leave the session with increased knowledge of financial literacy and many ways to disseminate these topics to the individuals they serve, regardless of academic level. 

Note: This training is currently ONLY open to employees of CBVI, DDD, and DVRS, DDD/Medicaid Approved Providers, DVRS approved vendors, and individuals with disabilities and family members.

Employment Specialist Supplemental: Integrating Technology: Job Preparation

and Development

Social services have traditionally been behind the times when it comes to using current and emerging technology to further efforts in the field. This session will dive into a host of different technology that a job coach could use to ready a candidate for their job search or interview, including digital and video resumes and endorsements, remote interviewing software, QR code embedding, and more. From a job developer standpoint, participants will learn how to harness the power of social media to exponentially increase their network and improve their ability to interact with business owners, capitalizing on many open and hidden job leads.

Note: This training is currently ONLY open to employees of CBVI, DDD, and DVRS, DDD/Medicaid Approved Providers, DVRS approved vendors, and individuals with disabilities and family members.

Employment Specialist Supplemental: Introduction to Assistive Technology

While supporting an individual with disabilities in performing their work duties, sometimes challenges emerge that time, teaching, or circumstance will not remedy. This supplemental will provide a spectrum of assistive technology an individual could use to overcome those challenges to better comprehend, navigate, and perform their work at their highest level of independence. Participants will leave the session with examples of a wide variety of assistive technology and software recommendations for use on the job site as well as a greater understanding of how to appropriately assess and match assistive technology to the need. 

Note: This training is currently ONLY open to employees of CBVI, DDD, and DVRS, DDD/Medicaid Approved Providers, DVRS approved vendors, and individuals with disabilities and family members.

Employment Specialist Supplemental: Navigating The Americans with Disabilities Act and Employment: A Guide for Employment Specialists

Employment Specialist Supplemental: Situational Assessment: A Tool for Exploring Possibilities

Many adults and young adults with disabilities employed today find themselves in jobs they are struggling to maintain over time. Often that struggle is because the job isn’t a good match for the employee’s skills, abilities, attributes and/or interests. While most adults and young adults without disabilities have had the opportunity to inform their employment and career preferences through a variety of formal and informal work experiences in different settings, this is typically not so for their peers with disabilities.  Job seekers with disabilities who have limited work experience to draw from are at a disadvantage when expected to identify employment goals.  In this training, participants will learn what situational assessments are and how they can be a valuable tool for job seekers and their community employment staff. Participants will receive the Situational Tool for Exploring Possibilities (STEP) and explore how its use can assisting job seekers in identifying the type of job or career they want and how well their skills, abilities, attributes, and interests match it.

Note: This training is currently ONLY open to employees of CBVI, DDD, and DVRS, DDD/Medicaid Approved Providers, DVRS approved vendors, and individuals with disabilities and family members.

Employment Specialist Supplemental: Social/Sexual Challenges at the Workplace

Assisting individuals with disabilities as they navigate the social expectations at the workplace is always a challenge, but when situations of a sexual nature arise, the challenge becomes more complex. This supplemental will provide professionals with a social and educational context for why these issues present themselves in the workplace. Participants will leave with tools to appropriately respond to these situations while simultaneously supporting healthy sexuality for the people we serve.

Note: This training is currently ONLY open to employees of CBVI, DDD, and DVRS, DDD/Medicaid Approved Providers, DVRS approved vendors, and individuals with disabilities and family members.

Employment Specialist Supplemental: Supported Employment Leadership Institute

Employees often become supervisors because their success and leadership in a previous role has resulted in a promotion. However, being an effective supervisor does not come automatically with the new job title. Rather, one must intentionally develop a set of skills in areas such as leadership, visioning, recruitment, and organization.

Our Supported Employment Leadership Institute is a 2-day, interactive course designed specifically for supported employment managers and supervisors. During this course, participants will dive into solution-focused, evidence-based strategies to address challenges unique to supported employment managers. Attendance at both days will be required for a certificate.

Topics will include:

• The hallmarks of effective supervisors

• Exploring the challenges of hiring and maintaining qualified job coaches

• Strategies for supervising remote workers

• The importance of collecting program data and how to meaningfully utilize it to improve services

• Documentation challenges unique to DDD supported employment supports

  
  

Note: This training is currently ONLY open to employees of CBVI, DDD, and DVRS, DDD/Medicaid Approved Providers, DVRS approved vendors, and individuals with disabilities and family members.

Employment Specialist Supplemental: Supporting Parents and Families:
Navigating Challenging Conversations on the Path to Employment

While no two families experience life in the same way, parents and families of individuals with disabilities often share extraordinary challenges and stressors in their lives. When discussions around employment and independence emerge, many parents become overwhelmed with the perceived risks that come with a decision to further integrate their adult child into the community. This course will explore where parents are coming from in order to fully support their journey, as well as concrete tools and strategies that providers can use to help support and advocate for individuals with disabilities as they work towards employment and independence.

Note: This training is currently ONLY open to employees of CBVI, DDD, and DVRS, DDD/Medicaid Approved Providers, DVRS approved vendors, and individuals with disabilities and family members.

Robert Wood Johnson Medical School