SBIR-STTR Award

This project addresses the need for increased opportunities for customized employment for individuals with cognitive disabilities by developing the Person-Centered Planning ToolKit. The Toolkit will enhance implementation of person centered planning (PCP), often limited by lack of follow-through on action items and a lack of tools to match career preferences to specific customized employment opportunities. The goal of the project is to create two applications for self direction of PCP implementation by transition students with significant cognitive disabilities and their PCP or IEP team members. The first is a Team assignments, Collaboration, and Task Tracking tool (TACT) that will enable users to understand action items and due dates, systematically remind participants of commitments, and track completion in ways that clearly identify who is responsible and when items are completed. The second component is a Community Assets Mapping application (CAM) that supports the employment discovery process by crowd-sourcing identification of community businesses, associations, mentors, and professionals who can be resources in exploring career discovery. Results will be detailed on a mapping interface similar to Google Maps and will be interoperable with the TACT. Usability and feasibility will be established through collaboration with two user groups: 30 transition students aged 18-22 from a secondary school district transition program, their teachers, and six PCP facilitators and parents, two of whom will use the ToolKit in actual PCP facilitation.

This project evaluates the usability and feasibility of a Person-Centered Planning Toolkit to address the need for increased opportunities for competitive integrated employment for individuals with cognitive disabilities. The Toolkit enhances implementation of person-centered planning (PCP), often limited by lack of follow-through on action items, and a lack of tools to match career preferences to specific customized employment opportunities. The goal of the project is to complete development of a prototype application with demonstrated usability and feasibility based on previous Phase I results from both transition students with mild to moderate cognitive disabilities and their PCP or Individual Education Program (IEP) team members. The first application, the Team Assignments, Collaboration, and Task Tracking tool (TACT) enables users to understand action items and due dates, systematically remind participants of commitments, and track completion in ways that clearly identify who is responsible and when items are completed. A second component, the Community Assets Mapping application (CAM) supports the employment discovery process by crowd-sourcing identification of community businesses, associations, mentors, and professionals who can be resources in exploring career discovery. Results are detailed on a mapping interface similar to Google Maps and are interoperable with the TACT. The toolkit is evaluated for usability and feasibility by transition students, PCP facilitators, and adults with disabilities. Effectiveness is evaluated through a randomized control trial with students recruited from throughout the State of Oregon and nationally. Project outcomes include a commercially implemented, cognitively accessible software tool (PCP Toolkit) to improve self-directed execution of employment-focused action items from person-centered plans for persons with disabilities as well as other PCP domains such as community participation, independent and supported living, health, and recreation.