Policy Chapters and Sections

Assistive Technology and Auxiliary Aids (AT)

Chapter: 10 Section: 4.3
Effective Date: 2/15/2019
Expiration Date: Continuing
Published Date: 9/9/2020 11:25:51 AM
Status: Current
Version: 2

Tags: EO, Disability, Equal Employment Opportunity, Nondiscrimination, NDP, NDP

  1. DCEO continues to work with Illinois workNet Centers to replace obsolete assistive technology with updated hardware and software. LWIAs are encouraged to identify obsolete or outdated assistive hardware and software programs. In addition, LWIAs must program and plan budgets or work with partners to replace obsolete items.
  2. IDES ensures its affirmative outreach and universal access requirements under WIOA and federal regulations are met by implementing the following:
    1. Unemployment Insurance and Employment Services Outreach Initiatives
      1. The Illinois Department of Employment Security is addressing requirements found in 29 CFR 38.40 by providing equitable services among substantial portions of the eligible population through its outreach programs. These programs are designed to broaden the composition of the pool of those considered for participation in programs administered through Employment Services (ES) to include:  members of both sexes, the various race/ethnicity and age groups, individuals with disabilities and all other protected EO categories.
      2. IDES Local Office site location is mentioned in Illinois Statutes, (See 20 ILCS 1015 and 820 ILCS 405/1705). IDES goes beyond the requirements of the statute as evidenced by locations listed on the Drug-Free Workplace certification filed each year with USDOL. Local UI/ES Offices are the focus of this outreach to a broad scope of individuals including veterans through the Agency’s Disabled Veteran's Outreach Plan. Local offices are strategically placed and equipped to ensure access by the broadest range of racial and ethnic groups, members of targeted age groups, individuals with disabilities and all other protected EO categories.
      3. To deliver services to veterans prescribed by Title 38 United States Code, Chapter 41 and 42, IDES receives funding each Federal Fiscal Year to station Local Veterans Employment Representatives (LVERs) and Disabled Veterans Outreach Program Representatives (DVOPs) in the local Illinois WorkNet Centers. This funding is negotiated with the Assistant Secretary for Veterans Employment and Training of the U.S. Department of Labor. Plans are due to the State Director of Veterans Employment and Training of the U.S. Department of Labor by mid-August.
      4. The Equal Opportunity Officer reviews current population’s demographics, unemployment insurance and employment service characteristic data to assess population trends. In addition, IDES publishes a yearly report on Women and Minorities in the Illinois Labor Force as required by statute. The EO officer along with the State Business Services Manager and the Acting State Monitor Advocate conducts outreach to community groups.
      5. Ongoing efforts will continue to be made to reach out to members of both sexes; individuals of various race/ethnic backgrounds; members of targeted age groups, and individuals with disabilities. Accordingly, to supplement these current and ongoing efforts, IDES tracks community events throughout the year. These outreach activities include minority and female targeted job fairs, media events and local ethnic events. Other events involving the calendar serve as a method to disseminate Unemployment Insurance/Employment Services program information throughout Illinois communities and to encourage all groups, including individuals with Limited English Proficiency, to engage in IDES services. The calendar serves as a tool to address universal meaningful access.
      6. Additionally, IDES has entered into interagency agreements with other various Illinois Agencies such as the Department of Human Services (IDHS), Department of Corrections (IDOC) to provide outside agency staff to access the IDES’ Illinois JobLink system. IDHS assists food stamp recipients and persons with disabilities with job referrals through the IDES Illinois JobLink System. IDOC staff has access to Illinois JobLink to provide job referrals to the formerly incarcerated. For years, IDES has funded a cooperative program with IDOC which provides job placement services to clients in selected Community Correctional Centers and IDES/Illinois WorkNet Centers. In SFY 2005, this initiative was expanded to become the Re-entry Employment Service Program. IDES also entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between IDOC and the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs to implement a pilot program for incarcerated veterans under USDOL’s Incarcerated Veterans Transition Program.
      7. IDES has trained IDOC staff in the procedures for the Work Opportunity Tax Credit and for the Fidelity Bonding Program. Through the latter program, IDES arranges bonds for formerly incarcerated felons whose employers are unable to bond them through their usual bond providers, or for prospective employers who wish to reduce the perceived risk associated with hiring a formerly incarcerated felon.
      8. IDES continues to explore additional avenues to enter into interagency agreements with other various Illinois Agencies, in order to make outreach efforts to disabled individuals, members of both sexes, members of various racial and ethnic groups and members of the various age groups. Throughout the year the IDES participates in or organizes job fairs throughout the state, including job fairs in minority communities. There are ongoing employment workshops in the local offices that include minorities and women. The Agency website lists a calendar of upcoming events including job fairs and community events. In addition to these listed events the IDES will participate in activities organized by minority, female and other disability groups.
    2. Outreach to Minority, Immigrants, Faith-Based and Female Organizations
      1. IDES works regularly with two key organizations that support minority hiring:  the Illinois Hispanic Association of State Employees and the Illinois Association of Minorities in Government.
      2. In addition, IDES has worked with community-based organizations to reach out to residents with limited English proficiency. Below are examples of collaborations between IDES and community-based organizations as well as other state agencies to promote IDES services. The EO Officer also is a member of the following committees, councils and taskforces:  Illinois Hispanic Advisory Council, Illinois Asian American Advisory Council, African American Advisory Council, Illinois Economic and Employment Opportunity for Persons with Disabilities Taskforce, Equip for Equality’s Disability Rights Consortium and Equip for Equality’s Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Project. More regarding these committees are discussed below.
        1. The Illinois Association of Hispanic State Employees (IAHSE)
          The mission of IAHSE is to advocate for the employment, educational and professional development of the Latino state employees and to ensure quality services to Latino communities in Illinois. IDES participates in an annual IAHSE Conference where a variety of topics are discussed and workshops are attended. Additionally, IDES has received and implemented various guidance from IAHSE on filling bilingual positions throughout the State to ensure we are meeting the LEP populations’ needs.
        2. Illinois Association of Minorities in Government (IAMG)
          The IAMG advocates on behalf of minority employees for jobs, promotions, job retention and protection against discriminatory acts. Founded in 1978, the organization has actively sought to ensure implementation of existing equal opportunity laws and to challenge government officials in areas of unfair employment practices.
        3. Illinois Hispanic Employment Plan Advisory Council
          IDES’ Equal Opportunity Office (EO Office) attends regular meetings for the Hispanic Employment Plan Advisory Council. The Council was implemented by the Illinois General Assembly to address barriers in State government employment faced by Hispanics, to gather information on their workforces, and provide solutions and incentives to foster the employment and promotion of these groups in general in the labor market and State government. IDES’ EO Office provides information and shares IDES’ workforce history and successes at these meetings.
        4. Illinois Asian-American Plan Employment Advisory Council
          IDES’ EO Office attends regular meetings for the Asian-American Employment Plan Advisory Council. The Council was implemented by the Illinois General Assembly to address barriers in State government employment faced by Asian-Americans, to gather information on their workforces, and provide solutions and incentives to foster the employment and promotion of these groups in general in the labor market and State government. IDES’ EO Office provides information and shares IDES’ workforce history and successes at these meetings.
        5. Illinois’ African-American Plan Employment Advisory Council
          IDES’ EO Office attends regular meetings for the African-American Employment Plan Advisory Council. The Council was implemented by the Illinois General Assembly to address barriers in State government employment faced by African-Americans, to gather information on their workforces, and provide solutions and incentives to foster the employment and promotion of these groups in general in the labor market and State government. IDES’ EO Office provides information and shares IDES’ workforce history and successes at these meetings.
        6. Polish American Association
          The Polish American Association (PAA), a human service agency, is to serve the diverse needs of the Polish community in the Chicago Metro area by providing resources for changing lives with emphasis on assisting immigrants. IDES has provided the PAA staff with training on Illinois JobLink to assist Polish immigrants with employment opportunities.
        7. Centro de Información
          Centro de Información is a not-for-profit Hispanic social service agency founded in 1972. The agency helps nearly 15,000 predominantly low-income Hispanic immigrants each year by providing individual and family counseling, bilingual advocacy, information and referral, immigration and naturalization services, parenting skills training, community education and youth programs. IDES representatives periodically visit the Center and update staff on IDES services.
        8. Chinese American Service League
          Founded in 1978, the Chinese American Service League (CASL) is the largest and most comprehensive social service agency in the Midwest dedicated to serving the needs of Chinese Americans. Housed in the Kam L. Liu Building, with multilingual and multicultural professional and support staff, CASL’s budget supports programming that mainly serves newly-arrived immigrants who often do not have formal education, possess few transferable job skills and know little of the world around them. The community group has been provided orientation on IDES services and has access to job openings.
        9. Mi Raza
          The Mi-Raza is a faith based organization that serves as an outreach health and education center for all citizens of the town of Arcola and Douglas County, but specializes in offering many of the outreach services to the growing Hispanic and Spanish speaking population. IDES provides information on Illinois WorkNet services in the areas to the organization.
        10. Illinois Department of Human Services
          The Department of Human Services and IDES established the Welcoming Center in North Riverside, Illinois to provide one stop services for food stamp assistance and employment services to immigrants. IDES has provided assistance to IDHS’ Welcoming Center to clients in need of employment. Additional Welcoming Centers are planned for Aurora and Chicago. Funding will determine operational feasibility of these centers.
        11. Women in the Trades
          1. Chicago Women in Trades works to increase the number of women in the skilled trades and other blue-collar occupations and to eliminate the barriers that prohibit women from entering and remaining in nontraditional careers. IDES has hosted workshops for women interested in the Chicago Women in Trades Organization.
          2. IDES offers an avenue to unsubsidized training opportunities in the private sector through the Apprenticeship Information Center (AIC). The AIC provides guidance to persons interested in becoming apprentices in the construction trades. Operating through IDES/Illinois WorkNet Centers, specially trained IDES staff located in the Chicago metropolitan areas provide information on specific prerequisites and application procedures for several trades and various apprenticeship programs.
          3. Over the last few years, IDES has helped with outreach efforts to recruit and refer women to nontraditional occupations, particularly apprenticeship openings in the building trades. In this activity, IDES cooperates with federal agencies, such as the Women’s Bureau, and local groups such as Chicago Women in Trades (CWIT). CWIT works with IDES/AIC to extend their ability to attract women into the high wage, high-skilled jobs in the construction industry.
          4. CWIT, IDES/AIC, the Illinois Department of Labor Office of Apprenticeship, Illinois Community College Board, The Builders Association, Construction Industry Service Corporation, the Chicago Building Trades Council, and the Workforce Boards of Metropolitan Chicago help women overcome barriers to employment. AIC staff receive training, recruitment materials, assessment tools, and participant handbooks and guides to help them serve women interested in entering the construction industry.
        12. Illinois Migrant Council
          The Illinois Migrant Council (IMC) is a community-based non-profit organization with the primary mission of promoting employment, education, health, housing and other opportunities for migrant and seasonal farmworkers (MSFW) and their families to achieve economic self-sufficiency and stability. Outreach workers from IDES work with IMC staff to visit rural areas in Illinois to meet with migrant and seasonal farmworkers to ensure they are afforded equal and meaningful benefits, services and programs from IDES.
        13. Mexican Hometown AssociationsThere are several Hometown Associations that have formed throughout Illinois. Its members are immigrants from specific states in Mexico. IDES has participated in events sponsored by the Hometown Associations including Casa Jalisco’s Summer social services event.
        14. Governor’s Office of New Americans (GONA)
          The New Americans Office held town hall meetings called Dialogs in various parts of Illinois. IDES participated in these outreach events to expand its outreach efforts to new immigrant groups.
    3. Limited English Proficiency Populations
      1. Services and Management Initiatives
        1. IDES provides a telephone interpreter service to assist individuals in filing unemployment insurance claims and adjudicating issues arising with respect to those claims. The same system is provided for employment service clients looking for employment opportunities. In addition, there are approximately 150 bilingual staff assigned to local offices serving significant Limited English Proficiency populations including Spanish, Polish and Chinese.
        2. Additionally, the Agency will perform periodic monitoring to identify and implement other reasonable steps that can be taken to provide services and information in appropriate languages where there is a significant number or proportion of the population eligible to be served at an IDES facility, or likely to be directly affected by those services, who may need services or information in a language other than English in order to be effectively informed about or able to participate in the services.
      2. Limited English Proficiency Population (LEP) Assessment
        1. IDES EO staff also uses existing means to assess language needs in the local office service area. IDES will track the number of LEP clients who file unemployment claims, review telephone interpreter requests, the number of clients who call the Spanish certification telephone line (Tele-Serve), the number of non-monetary determinations issued to LEP claimants, “hits” on the Internet link to IDES website information in Spanish, Russian, Polish and Chinese as well as local census data. IDES also contracts with Propio Language Services to ensure compliance with its LEP requirements and to serve the LEP community and provide meaningful and equal access to our programs, services and benefits.
        2. Service complaints associated with LEP will also be used to assess language needs. IDES has a statutory requirement to complete the annual Hispanic and Asian-American Employment Plan Surveys and the annual Bilingual Needs Survey. The surveys are an evaluation of an Agency’s needs to increase bilingual workers. Another state statutory requirement seen under the Illinois State Services Assurance Act is to monitor the number of bilingual front-line staff. This Act requires IDES to maintain its bilingual workforce at a minimum 127 bilingual staff. Currently IDES has approximately 142 bilingual front-line staff to ensure our Federal and State LEP requirements are met.
        3. Based on the data to date the greatest number of LEP clients in Illinois are Spanish speaking. The IDES website provides translated publications and several translated forms which are available to both the public as well as local office staff. The IDES website page also translates into a number of different languages.
    4. Outreach to Individuals with Disabilities
      1. IDES works regularly with state agencies and community organizations that support individuals with disabilities.
        1. Equip for Equality, Disability Rights Consortium
          Equip for Equality, a disability rights advocate group also runs a Disability Rights Consortium which IDES’ EO Office is a member. Disability Rights Consortium members are members of the legal community, business community, government, educators and public that gather to learn about recent law, relevant hot topics, and areas of concern that individuals with disabilities face in our communities. IDES’ EO Office is in regular attendance at the Disability Consortium meetings held at Equip for Equality.
        2. Equip for Equality, Americans with Disabilities Project (ADA Project)
          Equip for Equality, a disability rights advocate group also runs the ADA Project which IDES’ EO Office is actively involved with. The ADA Project also has members of the legal community, business community, government, educators and public that gather to learn about recent law, relevant hot topics, and areas of concern that individuals with disabilities face in our communities. IDES’ EO Office is in regular attendance at the ADA Project meetings held at Equip for Equality.
        3. Employment and Economic Opportunity for Persons with Disabilities Task Force
          IDES’ EO Office is a member of the Illinois Task Force on Employment and Economic Opportunity for Persons with Disabilities (EEOPWDT), which was established via legislation to join the forces of 10 designated state agencies, including IDES, with 15 public members, including at least 5 who have a disability. The Task Force recommends to the General Assembly and to the Governor, including legislative proposals, regulatory changes, systems changes, and budget initiatives, that would advance employment and economic opportunity for persons with disabilities in Illinois. Through this task force IDES is able to disseminate information on employment services and programs. Several workgroups exist within the EEOPD Task Force, who work on reform of existing employment systems, wage, education, housing and transportation legislation and issues throughout Illinois. The IDES EO Officer actively participates in the Employer workgroup, which has drafted strategic plans presented to the Illinois General Assembly.
        4. Office of Rehabilitation Services
          Offices of Rehabilitation Services field staff use the IDES Career Information System as an on-line resource for individuals with disabilities. The ORS staff works with the physically, mentally, visually impaired and the hearing impaired on skills assessments and employment placement. The vocational rehabilitation counselors work with IDES staff on and use the web-based Labor Exchange Services. On January 18, 2012 IDES provided an overview of Illinois JobLink program to the Division of Rehabilitation Services (DRS). DRS is the statewide program providing services to individuals with disabilities.
        5. Disabilityworks
          Disabilityworks role is to increase the economic and employment opportunities of people with disabilities while meeting the workforce needs of businesses located in the State of Illinois by promoting a collaborative partnership between the private and public sectors. The organization is part of the Illinois WorkNet program. IDES staff works with the organization to provide job leads for people with disabilities. In addition, IDES participated in employer workshops to increase awareness of the advantages of hiring individuals with disabilities. These workshops were held in Rockford, Springfield and Fairview Heights. Members from the Statewide Independent Living Council participated in these workshops.
        6. Statewide Independent Living Council (SILC)
          The IDES Officer also serves on the Statewide Independent Living Council (SILC) subcommittee on Employment for Individuals with Disabilities. IDES provides updates on IDES services. SILC was a participant of the employer workshops in 2011.
        7. Access Living
          IDES has provided an overview of IDES services to a number of disability organizations including Chicago Access Living (see the link in the References tab) which provides services to individuals with disabilities in the Chicago area.

Section 188 Reference Guide PROMISING PRACTICES IN ACHIEVING NONDISCRIMINATION AND EQUAL OPPORTUNITY

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