FAYETTEVILLE — The Arkansas Promise project has begun enrolling teens with disabilities who receive Supplemental Security Income to take part in a federally funded program that will provide training and paid work experiences, the first such work experience for many of the teens.
Last September, the United States Department of Education awarded a $32 million, five-year grant to the College of Education and Health Professions at the University of Arkansas and the Arkansas Department of Education to fund the project, which is aimed at improving the career and education outcomes of low-income Arkansas teenagers with disabilities.
The award is believed to be the largest research grant ever received by the UA. Brent Thomas Williams, associate professor of rehabilitation education and research, is the principal investigator of the grant and oversees the project. Philip Adams serves as project director, and Alejandro Ortiz is recruitment coordinator.
The Social Security Administration recently provided Promise officials the data needed to begin reaching out to teens who qualify for the program.
“We mailed our first round of recruitment materials to eligible teens and their families in August,” Ortiz said. “We are targeting teens who are 16 years old first because they will soon age out of eligibility for the program. Recruiters have also begun to canvass neighborhoods in 25 counties across the state. Our goal is to recruit 100 teens a month, but we know the process will be slow at first until word begins to spread.”
The Promise grant will provide training and paid work experiences for 1,000 low-income Arkansas teenagers between the ages of 14 and 16 with disabilities who receive SSI. Case managers will also work with youth and their families to coordinate services provided by various state agencies.
The teens’ experiences will be compared to those of a second group of 1,000 similar teens who will not receive the additional services. Based on the results of the program, four federal agencies may use the Promise program as a model for future programs.
The program expects to work with teens in 25 Arkansas counties, Ortiz said.
More information about the program is available by calling 1-855-649-0022, toll-free or on the website http://promise.uark.edu. Regional directors are working in each of four quadrants of the state to oversee recruitment and training and to help build partnerships with employers.
DaNita Webster is the Southern Region director of the Arkansas Promise program. Her territory includes Columbia, Ouachita, Miller, Union, Desha, Chicot, and Drew Counties.
“One of the goals of the grant is to offer participants summer employment,” Webster stated in an email to the Banner-News. The Arkansas Promise will be in existence until 2018. Our staff will be seeking employers for summer work experience 2016 in Columbia County very soon.”
Webster expressed thanks to employers in the Southern Region. “We appreciate employers allowing participants to come into their establishments and training them for the future,” she stated in the email.