OVR to take action on needs of transition-aged youth with disabilities

The Office of Vocational Rehabilitation is going to help transition-aged youth with disabilities in the CNMI, due to a drop in youths with disabilities applying to OVR since 2013.

OVR director Arlene Yamagata told Saipan Tribune that the success ratio is lower for transition-aged youth than the general population of individuals with disabilities served by OVR.

Transition-aged youth include students with disabilities that range from 14 to 24 years of age.

“The number of employment outcomes is very low for this population,” Yamagata said.

Other factors or barriers for youth in transition are that majority lack job skills, don’t have education or training, and not having job search skills.

The youths in transition’s barriers to accessing OVR services had difficulty accessing training or education programs under OVR and inadequate disability related accommodations.

According to Yamagata’s documents on the needs assessment report, OVR counselors visit three high schools on Saipan once a month educating students and to do intakes as needed, OVR counselors do not get invited to Individualized Education Plans or IEP meetings at schools on a regular basis, and exposure of youths with disabilities to job opportunities and training.

Yamagata said that OVR wants to resolve this issue by providing more outreach to the communities for youths in transition.

According to Yamagata, OVR counselors will be participating in IEP meetings for students with disabilities that will acquire the schools staff to invite counselors to meetings.

Other actions that OVR will take is review the existing memorandum of understanding with the school administrators and review their requirement for current testing of special education students with the Public School System in order to speed referrals and the intake process.

OVR counselors will also be meeting with students and families on intakes that cannot be done in school, and was highly recommended for Rota and Tinian and distant villages in Saipan.

OVR counselors will be in partnership with schools for referrals on developing a summer program for youths to take in summer jobs with their abilities, work the youths in transition into a graduate student or exit the school system after completing, and develop mentoring programs to help young people with disabilities in school.

Yamagata said that the needs of the transition-aged youth was part of the needs assessment that would help OVR understand the multi-faceted needs of persons with disabilities in the CNMI.