The overall goal of the MI-CEO grant is to maximize employment opportunities for people with disabilities who want to work, or work more, by improving the Medicaid and employment services infrastructure in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Beginning in 2008, the MI-CEO grant undertook a broad-based strategic planning effort to develop a comprehensive plan to maximize employment for people with disabilities. To view the complete approved plan, click here.
This effort brought together people with disabilities and their families, employers, providers together with state policymakers and program planners. The plan that resulted from this process proposed the creation of the Massachusetts Disability Employment Initiative (MA-DEI). The MA-DEI is a public/private partnership bringing together people with disabilities and their families, state policy makers across Secretariats, employment service providers, and employers to create an environment that maximizes work opportunities for people with disabilities, addresses the needs of employers and strengthens the Massachusetts workforce.
Within the public sector, the MA-DEI will work to build capacity across multiple state agencies that support people with disabilities, including the state Medicaid and Vocational Rehabilitation agencies, as well as other state agencies that directly provide or purchase employment services for people with disabilities. Within the private sector, the MA-DEI will seek to devise new ways of empowering youth and adults with disabilities to participate in employment, to enhance the capacity of community-based employment services and related support programs to more effectively assist people with disabilities to achieve their employment goals, and to engage businesses and employers to hire, retain, and advance people with disabilities.
The Eight Strategic Priority Areas for the MA-DEI are:
Priority 1: Communicating a Pro-Employment Message to all Stakeholders
Broadcast the message to the business world, service system, and general public that people with disabilities can work.
Priority 2: Empowering People with Disabilities to Fully Participate in Employment
Ensure that individuals with disabilities, family members, young adults, and organizations serving them have access to information, resources, and training that enable more people to go to work.
Priority 3: Effectively Engaging Businesses and Employers
Help state agencies and businesses hire and advance employees with disabilities. This will be done by making sure those businesses work together. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts state offices will be given support to become a model employer of people with disabilities.
Priority 4: Enhancing the Employment Services Delivery System
Support state agencies and service providers and secondary school systems to deliver a pro-work message, and offer competitive employment opportunities across all EOHHS (Executive Office of Health and Human Services) agencies.
Priority 5: Ensuring Access to Work Incentives and Benefits Information
Ensure that youth and adults with disabilities across the state have access to complete, accurate and timely work incentives and benefits information in order to make fully informed decisions about work and earnings.
Priority 6: Strengthening the CommonHealth Working Program and other MassHealth Services that Promote Employment
The goal of this area will be to ensure that the CommonHealth Working Program and other MassHealth policies, procedures, and services continue to be an employment support for people with disabilities.
Priority 7: Increasing Transportation Options
Ensure that people with disabilities have greater access to transportation options when going to work. Trip-planning tools and increased transportation options will be developed and supported.
Priority 8: Tracking Employment Outcomes
Ensure that EOHHS and individual disability-serving agencies effectively track employment outcome data for people with disabilities and use data to support and improve the service delivery system.
The Massachusetts Medicaid Infrastructure and Comprehensive Employment Opportunities grant (MICEO) is a collaborative project of the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services, the Institute for Community Inclusion at UMass Boston, and the Center for Health Policy and Research at UMass Medical School aimed at improving employment outcomes for people with disabilities. The grant is funded by the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CFDA #93-768).