You know 'em when you see 'em—people who are fired up and will not be denied success in their work mission. Peggy Anderson is a work force, from the start of each day. State Coordinator – Business Relations, for the Alabama Department of Rehabilitation Services, Peggy saw to it that Rehab Services incorporated O*NET into their Employment Institute, the two-part training program that everyone who provides direct service to customers must complete.
Rehab Services sees two customer segments—businesses, and people who need to be ready for the marketplace. Thus the design of the Employment Institute is Part 1: Business as Customer, and Part 2: Employment Readiness. Specially trained staff members work with businesses and with rehabilitating worker-customers, ensuring that the former are ready for the latter and that the rehabilitated workers are ready for the marketplace.
Once Peggy's staff contacts businesses, the employers learn how to recruit people from Rehab Services. They learn about disclosure, accommodation, and the panoply of services that the Department provides. Part 1 of the Employment Institute (EI) concentrates on staff learning this information and building skill in helping businesses. As the Rehab staff work through Part 2 of EI, they concentrate on helping the rehabilitating customers. "We do lots of things about job-readiness," Peggy explains. "We generate good overviews for the counselors, showing them how to help customers be ready for work. We are helping our client make informed choices, choosing appropriate goals. That's where we have realized that O*NET is an extremely appropriate tool." After having completed the Employment Institute, Rehab staff can use O*NET many ways in helping clients. "We show participants how to get to O*NET. We give a brief overview of the tool, showing how they can drill down, using vocational goals. We make sure people know the tasks of an occupation, the work environment, barriers, and the skills needed. Then we show them how O*NET links to the rest of the world. We go through the outlook piece, how to learn the job growth patterns specific to Alabama."
Employment Institute also presents tips on various ways counselors can use O*NET. The Code Connector can help the counselor zero in on the appropriate occupational code, given a past job title of a customer. When taking a work history, the counselor can find appropriate language for skills or tasks of a job that the customer has done, then cut and paste that language into the customer's work history, and eventually into a resumé. In many ways O*NET can serve as an excellent source for vocational guidance, for example, providing a window to related occupations, and good language to practice for describing work history.
Lastly, the Employment Institute points out other parts of O*NET that are beneficial to Department staff members. EI has been very successful. Peggy takes the program throughout the state, and has opened it up to Rehab Services' partners. She produced the training in seven cities recently, when many of the attendees were with community rehabilitation entities, Good Will, Easter Seals, school systems, job coaching services, and the like.
Peggy's work life blends into her "other lives." She is a tireless advocate for veterans, committed to outreach to disabled vets. Her husband is a West Point graduate. Alabama has disproportionate numbers of reservist and National Guard veterans of recent foreign wars. Her state rehab program was among the first to collaborate with veterans' agencies in program development. Knowing of all these influences, you understand how this "outside" work has become her passion. "My commissioner and I have a serious commitment to this work," Peggy says. "I often travel the country on this mission. I'm on a National VA task force."
|
