Frequently Asked Questions

What is the NTAR Leadership Center?

The National Technical Assistance and Research Center to Promote Leadership for Increasing Employment and Economic Independence of Adults with Disabilities (NTAR Leadership Center) is a collaboration of partners with expertise in workforce development, disability employment, economic development, financial education, benefits planning, and leadership development. Established in September 2007 through a grant from the US Department of Labor’s Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP), the NTAR Leadership Center is housed at the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.

What is the NTAR Leadership Center’s mission?

The Center's mission is to build capacity and leadership at the federal, state, and local levels to enable change across workforce development and disability-specific systems that will increase employment and economic self-sufficiency for adults with disabilities.

Who directs the Center’s programs and activities?

The NTAR Leadership Center is currently led by a consortium of workforce development and disability specialists including:

The John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
The American Public Human Services Association, Center for Workers with Disabilities, Washington, DC
The National Leadership Consortium on Developmental Disabilities at The University of Delaware, Newark, DE
Elizabeth M. Boggs Center on Developmental Disabilities at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, University of Medicine & Dentistry of New Jersey, New Brunswick, NJ
The Community Solutions Group, LLC, Arlington, VA
The Program for Disability Research, Rutgers University School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers University

The consortium, led by the Heldrich Center’s Executive Director Kathy Krepcio, works in close cooperation with the federal Office of Disability Employment Policy in Washington, D.C.

Consortium staff members are also guided by national experts serving on advisory panels for Technical Assistance and for Research. The Technical Assistance Advisory Board is co-chaired by Megan Juring, Assistant Secretary, California Health and Human Services Agency and MaryAlice Mowry, Director, Pathways to Employment, Minnesota Department of Human Services. The Research Advisory Board is co-chaired by Dr. Carl Van Horn, Professor and Director, John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development, and Dr. Doug Kruse, Professor, Department of Economics and the School of Management and Labor Relations, at Rutgers University.

What is the State Leadership Innovation Institute (SLII)?

The State Leadership Innovation Institute is a special leadership training program for three model states whose ongoing efforts to promote employment of adults with disabilities can guide other states seeking to do the same. The initial three SLII states—Minnesota, Maryland, and Connecticut—were competitively selected from team nominated by governors nationwide. Beginning in 2008, the three states have been participating in activities that give their teams access to nationally respected experts providing intensive and customized technical assistance and leadership building. The NTAR Leadership Center’s goal is for these states to emerge as the nation’s leaders in pioneering models to promote employment for adults with disabilities that are tied to state workforce development and economic growth strategies.

What is the State Peer Leaders Network (SPLN)?

The State Peer Learning Network facilitates information exchange, continuous learning, and the sharing of promising disability employment practices and strategies for a select group of motivated state policymakers interested in putting these practices to work. Technical assistance as well as access to topical teleconferences, webinars, and virtual seminars is available through the NTAR Leadership Center. Current state participants in the SPLN are Alaska, California, the District of Columbia, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont, and Virginia.

What is available to member states of the State Peer Leaders Network?

The Center offers a range of activities to SPLN members, including opportunities for technical assistance. Activities available to members include:

Access to teleconferences and interactive webinars with national experts and state leaders. Based on state interests, and with a focus on demand-side strategies and the project’s five targeted goal areas, NTAR offers a series of teleconferences and/or webinars.
Access to a learning exchange between the State Leaders Innovation Institute (SLII) and the SPLN. The State Leaders Innovation Institute is producing tools, resources, and knowledge that will be of significant value to other states that are advancing their disability employment efforts.
Timely access to NTAR Leadership Center resources. Leaders in the SPLN receive first access to research, promising practices, and other resources developed through the NTAR Center. The SPLN email listserv is used to disseminate resources as soon as they are available.
Access to NTAR Leadership Center technical assistance resources. Members of the SPLN can request technical assistance from the Center ranging from telephone/email consultation to short consultancy research to on-site support.
Access to peer learning and information exchange through a Cooperative Inquiry System. To promote peer learning, members of the SPLN can submit questions for a quarterly survey of the SPLN.
Receive dedicated news about resources and learning events. The SPLN email listserv and website (www.ntarcenter.org) keep the Network informed about new research, resources, and special events.

How does a state become a member of the State Peer Leaders Network?

Membership in the SPLN is by request only and directed toward state leaders who have demonstrated a strong commitment to advancing their work on the employment of people with disabilities by reaching across multiple agencies and developing partnerships between workforce development, economic development, and disability employment. There is no cost to the state and no membership fee. States interested in joining the Network should contact Nanette Relave (nrelave@aphsa.org or 202-682-0100 ext. 241 for more information.

What are the NTAR Leadership Center’s guiding principles?

The Center’s mission and initiatives are grounded in five principles drawn from six years of ODEP research and form the basis for the Center's technical assistance and training activities:

Effective leadership, collaboration, and partnerships are the foundation for system change efforts and are at the heart of every best practice.
Cross-agency and cross-system collaboration results in opportunities for leveraging expertise and resources—especially important to serving jobseekers with complex barriers to employment, both those with and without disabilities. This “blending and braiding” of resources enables service providers to respond to the unique strengths and needs of individual job seekers.
To the extent possible, the principle of universal design (UD) should apply not just to removing physical barriers but also to practices, services, and programs of the workforce development system and other environments, including the workplace, resulting in improved efficiency and better customer service.
Tax incentives, financial literacy efforts, benefits planning, and other incentives encouraging work can increase the prospects for employment success for people with disabilities, as well as improve their longer term economic outcomes.
Customized employment strategies and flexibility in the workplace can enhance employment opportunities and job success for people with and without disabilities. Using customized employment strategies to individualize the employment relationship between the job seeker and the employer can meet the needs of both, and can greatly improve employment opportunities for people with disabilities.

Where can I obtain more information on the NTAR Leadership Center—beyond this website?

For more information about the State Leaders Innovation Institute, contact Maria Heidkamp at heidkamp@rutgers.edu.

For more information about the State Peer Leaders Network, contact Nanette Relave at nrelave@aphsa.org

For general information about the NTAR Leadership Center, contact Kathy Krepcio at krepcio@rutgers.edu.