State Agency Promising Practices: Using Employment Data to Create Area-specific Employment Goals in Massachusetts

Authors

Allison C. Hall, University of Massachusetts BostonFollow
ThinkWork! at the Institute for Community Inclusion at UMass Boston

Document Type

Occasional Paper

Publication Date

2009

Keywords

Performance Measurement, Quality Assurance, and Oversight Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, I/DD, Developmental Disabilities, Employment, Access to Integrated Employment, ThinkWork

Disciplines

Organization Development | Rehabilitation and Therapy | Social and Behavioral Sciences | Social Work | Sociology | Vocational Rehabilitation Counseling

Abstract

In 2002, the Massachusetts Department of Developmental Services (DDS) developed a contractual requirement that employment service provider performance be tracked through outcome measures. As a result, DDS shaped its employment data collection system to focus on what it viewed as key outcomes for measuring success around employment. A confluence of factors including participation in the National Core Indicator project, a new Request for Responses (RFR) for Employment Support Services that emphasized performance measurement, and DDS’s intrinsic commitment to greater community employment supported the development of an employment data system that focused on individual outcomes. Data from this effort is now being used to help each area office create employment goals with their employment providers. A confluence of factors including participation in the National Core Indicator project (a collaboration among participating National Association of State Directors of Developmental Disability Services member state agencies and the Human Services Research Institute that work to develop a systematic approach to performance and outcome measurement), a new Request for Responses (RFR) for Employment Support Services that emphasized performance measurement, and DDS’s intrinsic commitment to greater community employment supported the development of an employment data system that focused on individual outcomes.

Recommended Citation

Hall, Allison C. and ThinkWork! at the Institute for Community Inclusion at UMass Boston, "State Agency Promising Practices: Using Employment Data to Create Area-specific Employment Goals in Massachusetts" (2009). ThinkWork! Publications. 70.
https://scholarworks.umb.edu/thinkwork/70