General Resources for Providers & Administrators

These programs can assist providers in helping their clients through technical assistance, resources, and services focused on topics ways to improve personal finances and programs that provide government entitlements and other forms of support.

• Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program: Employment & Training Component: This U.S. Department of Agriculture program provides funding to states & subsequently to employment service agencies to provide employment assistance to food stamp-eligible individuals.
• Ticket to Work Site for Service Providers: This site provides information for beneficiaries, employment networks, & other stakeholders. It includes archived information from the 2009 Ticket to Work Mental Health Summit held in New Orleans.
• SAMHSA/CSAT Integrating Substance Abuse Treatment & Vocational Services: This resource is Treatment Improvement Protocol #38 that presents a fundamental rethinking of the importance of integrating vocational services into substance abuse treatment planning. The practice of incorporating employment-related goals & interventions as a routine practitioner activity is a best practice.
•  SSI/SSDI Outreach, Access, and Recovery (SOAR): This library contains resources for providers working with individuals who are currently unhoused or at risk of experiencing homelessness, to support their access to disability income benefits. SAMHSA provides trainings discussing how SOAR may benefit the vocational recovery journey of those you work with. To explore these trainings, navigate to our collection of National Resources in Training on Employment and filter the area of focus to “Benefits.”

These resources can help providers connect and find supports they need to better serve clients in as they work towards achieving their vocational considerations and goals.

• Association of People Supporting Employment: Focused on creating career opportunities for individuals with disabilities – namely opportunities that have the possibility of career advancement.
• National Coalition for Homeless Veterans (NCHV): Services homeless veterans through a national network of community-based service providers and local, state and federal agencies that provide housing; food; health services; job training and placement assistance; legal aid and case management for homeless veterans. Additionally, they provide technical assistance and resources for these providers and agencies.
• Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP): This portal contains links to general employment information as well as information specific to people with disabilities.
• Directory of Centers for Independent Living & Statewide Independent Living Councils: Independent Living Research Utilization provides research, education, and consultation in the areas of independent living, the Americans with Disabilities Act, home and community-based services, and health issues for people with disabilities. This directory identifies Centers for Independent Living (CILs) & Independent Living Councils (ILCs) for each state. CILs/ILCs often are a source of employment and peri-employment for people with disabilities.
• Employee Assistance Professionals Association: A membership organization for professionals who work in employee assistance programs, which help employees who are experiencing mental health or substance abuse problems.
• WorkNet Solutions: Their mission is to “equip and inspire providers of employment, career, and workforce development services to increase key outcomes, especially for clients who face employment barriers.” Their customers include government, non-government, and faith-based organizations that help 200-20,000 adults and youth transition into the workforce each year from difficulties such as recent lay-off, long-term unemployment, injury or disability, government dependence, addiction, homelessness, mental illness, prison, poverty, military service, education, training, parenting, and more.”
• Training Resource Network, Inc.: Career development and training materials are available through this online store as books, resources, and immediate downloads.
•  Research & Training Center on Disability in Rural Communities: With a focus area being employment, the University of Montana’s Research & Training Center on Disability in Rural Communities provides resources on self-employment, community development, transition, vocational rehabilitation services, and rural employment.

Social Firms are one type of social enterprise. Social enterprises are businesses that trade for a social or environmental purpose, and their profits are reinvested back into the company to help them achieve this purpose. Social enterprises are businesses whose primary purpose is the common good. They use the methods and disciplines of business and the power of the market place to advance their social, environmental, and human justice agendas. The specific purpose of Social Firms is to create jobs for people who find it hardest to get them.

• Social Enterprise Alliance: The Social Enterprise Alliance caters to North America’s social enterprise sector by providing information, building awareness, and creating national networks amongst various other services. Its membership consists of  social enterprises, service providers, investors, corporations, public servants, academics and researchers.
• Social Firms Europe CEFEC: A network of Social Firms in Europe, CEFEC works to facilitate Social Firms, social co-operatives and other business models which create jobs that offer both a supportive working environment & paying, sustainable employment options.

You may also find these resources useful.

• The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA): NIDA’s website includes a variety of information that can help you understand the many aspects of addiction, its effects, & treatment.
• National Center of Alcohol Abuse & Alcoholism (NIAAA): NIAAA provides leadership in the national effort to reduce alcohol-related problems.
• No One Is Unemployable (Book): Designed for employment counselors and their clients, Elisabeth (Harney) Sanders-Park’s encyclopedia-style book was written to help those who face employment barriers create strategies that may lead to job placement.
• The Social Security Administration’s Red Book: An essential resource to consumers, employment specialists, and case managers, the Red Book is a general reference tool designed to provide a working knowledge of work incentives. It contains a general description of SSSA disability-related policies relevant to beneficiaries returning to work.
• Motivational Interviewing – Preparing People For Change, 2nd Edition (Book): Through detailed guidelines, William R. Miller & Stephen Rollnick explain how to evoke change despite ambivalence while reflecting on the process of learning Motivational Interviewing.
• Recovery & the Conspiracy of Hope: Pat Deegan has lived experience. Through this lecture presented at the Sixth Annual Mental Health Services Conference of Australia & New Zealand, she shares how hope is a key element in the successful recovery from mental illness.
• Customized Employment Initiative: Discover how a personalized relationship between employee & employer is a strategy that can benefit people with disabilities.
• Video Resources for Providers & Administrators: Discover various video resources of interest to those facilitating the employment of people in recovery.