{"id":22382,"date":"2025-07-19T22:02:18","date_gmt":"2025-07-19T22:02:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/22382\/"},"modified":"2025-07-19T22:02:18","modified_gmt":"2025-07-19T22:02:18","slug":"us-department-of-labor-announces-selection-of-13-states-district-of-columbia-to-join-initiative-expanding-opportunities-for-people-with-disabilities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/22382\/","title":{"rendered":"US Department of Labor announces selection of 13 states, District of Columbia to join initiative expanding opportunities for people with disabilities"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cCore states\u201d will receive federal support to increase competitive integrated employment<\/p>\n<p>WASHINGTON \u2013\u00a0The U.S. Department of Labor today announced that 13 states and the District of Columbia will participate as \u201ccore states\u201d in fiscal year 2025 in its\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dol.gov\/agencies\/odep\/initiatives\/neon\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">National Expansion of Employment Opportunities Network initiative<\/a>, enabling government agencies in these states to receive capacity-building support, policy development assistance and ongoing mentoring to increase\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dol.gov\/agencies\/odep\/program-areas\/integrated-employment\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">competitive integrated employment<\/a>\u00a0for people with disabilities.<\/p>\n<p>The recently selected states are Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky,\u00a0Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon and Tennessee, in addition to the District of Columbia.<\/p>\n<p>The selections will complement existing partnerships between the department\u2019s\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dol.gov\/agencies\/odep\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Office of Disability Employment Policy<\/a> and five state intermediary organizations that joined the NEON initiative in fiscal year 2023 and five national provider organizations that have participated in NEON since it began in fiscal year 2020. These organizations work with the initiative on key issues at the national, state and local levels to increase competitive integrated employment for people with disabilities.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBy supporting the new core states and maintaining our partnerships with national and state organizations, the NEON initiative will continue to advance policies and practices to make competitive integrated employment a reality for more disabled people, especially for individuals with significant disabilities,\u201d said Assistant Secretary of Labor for Disability Employment Policy Taryn M. Williams. \u201cOur goal is to increase access to jobs that pay competitive wages, offer equal opportunities for advancement and ensure that disabled people succeed in workplaces alongside other workers both with and without disabilities.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0five state intermediary organizations currently engaged in the NEON initiative include\u00a0the Association of People Supporting Employment First and the Council of State Administrators of Vocational Rehabilitation, both in Rockville, Maryland; the National Association of Medicaid Directors in Washington, D.C.; and the National Association of State Directors of Developmental Disabilities Services and the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors, both located in Alexandria, Virginia.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The five national provider organizations participating in NEON include ACCSES and The Arc, both in Washington, D.C.; the American Network of Community Options and Resources in Alexandria, Virginia; the Association of People Supporting Employment First in Rockville, Maryland; and SourceAmerica in Vienna, Virginia.<\/p>\n<p>ODEP\u00a0has administered the NEON initiative since its 2019 launch and contracts with Economic Systems Inc. in Falls Church, Virginia, for services needed to support the initiative.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cCore states\u201d will receive federal support to increase competitive integrated employment WASHINGTON \u2013\u00a0The U.S. Department of Labor today&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7661,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[28,134],"class_list":{"0":"post-22382","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jobs","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-jobs"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22382\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}