This forward-thinking guide walks employment specialists step by step through customized job development for people with disabilities, revealing the best ways to build a satisfying, meaningful job around a person's preferences, skills, and goals. Internationally known for their innovative, proactive job development strategies, the authors motivate readers to expand the way they think about employment opportunities and develop creative solutions.

Readers will get fresh, proven tips and ideas for every aspect of job development for youth and adults with significant support needs:

• discovering who the person is and what he or she really wants
   

• ensuring goodness of fit between employer and employee
   

• finding - or creating - "hidden jobs" in smaller companies
   

• empowering people through resource ownership (investing in resources that employers need) 
   

• skillfully negotiating job duties while managing conflicts that might arise
   

• creatively maximizing benefits using social security work incentives
   

• encouraging family support while respecting the individual as an adult

To make each part of job development easier, the book arms readers with practical content they can really use: easy-to-follow, step-by-step guidelines; checklists of critical questions to answer; success stories in both urban and rural settings; and sample scenarios, dialogues, and interview questions.

Equally useful to veteran professionals and those just starting out, this compelling guidebook breathes new life into the job development process and helps readers imagine a wider world of employment opportunities for people with disabilities.
 

 CHAPTERS INCLUDE:

1. Introduction to Customized Job Development
    

2. Discovery: The Foundation of Job Development
    

3. Job Matching and Analysis: Exploring Worksite Ecology and Seeking Goodness of Fit
    

4. Person-Centered Job Development Strategy: Finding the Jobs Behind the Jobs
    

5. Active Employer Councils: Leveraging the Networking Power of the Community
    

6. Resource Ownership: Self-Determined Economic Development
    

7. Interest-Based Negotiation, Problem Solving, and Conflict Management
    

8. Job Carving: Jobs that Fit an Individual's Ideal Conditions of Employment and Benefit the Workplace
    

9. Using Social Security Work Incentives
    

10. Active Families: Support, Partnership, and Roles
     

11. Organizational Commitment to Customized Employment: The Role of Leadership in Facilitating Careers
     

WHAT READERS ARE SAYING:

"The authors have once again produced work which is visionary, realistic, and inspiringly doable... They give how-to tools which help us to unlock the potential income and business for our people with the most significant disabilities."
- Jim Corey, Washington Initiative for Supported Employment, WA

"A complete, forward thinking yet realistic guide to job development and customized employment . . .
of great use to both experienced and new practitioners."
- David Mank, Ph.D., Director, Indiana Institute on Disability and Community, Professor, School of Education, Indiana University

"This book is not only their most important contribution to our field, but could be the most effective, functional, and how-to piece that exists to date."
- Corey Smith, Director of Employment Services, VIA of the Lehigh Valley, PA