2:00-3:00 PM Eastern, Thursday, September 25, 2025

Best Practices for Supported and Customized Employment Found in Personal Stories

Mary Pearson

The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA, 2014) outlined practices to be utilized by Vocational Rehabilitation and other service providers to increase integrated competitive employment. Now many personal examples of this increased employment have been shared through social media, websites, and agencies. This presentation will discuss themes and other data gathered through analysis of publicly available successful employment stories. The goal will be a summary of information and data about best practices in supported and customized employment provided through personal stories.

By the end of the session, participants will be able to:

• Participants will learn about the broad opportunities for supported and customized employment throughout the nations via the personal stories analyzed for the presentation.
• Best practices will be shared that are gathered via the analysis of personal stories.
• Information about the diversity of the individuals, the diversity of geographical areas, and an increased amount of stories will be shared.

Mary Pearson Ph.D. is an assistant research scientist at the Indiana Institute's Center on Community Living and Careers (CCLC). Dr. Pearson’s work experience has centered on transition for students with disabilities from middle and high school to post-school life. She taught as a special education teacher of students with higher level intervention needs and served as a teacher coach to teachers working with middle and high school students involving all types of abilities. She has trained new teachers at five universities, was a GED instructor at two community colleges, and has taught at a postsecondary community college program for adults with disabilities. She has work, volunteer, and research experience with community services, job assessment and training services, and advocacy and support agencies. Her research has focused on customized employment for those with higher level intervention needs, transition assessment and practices, improving inclusion during transition, and improving training for teachers of all students.