October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month (NDEAM)! First declared by President Harry S. Truman in 1945, NDEAM is celebrating its 70th anniversary with new posters and public service announcements, with “My Disability is One Part of Who I Am” as this year’s campaign theme.

The NIDILRR grantee community has many resources you can tap into as you celebrate NDEAM, from factsheets and guides to videos to training and technical assistance programs.

Are you a person with a disability who is seeking employment? Are you employed and want to maintain or improve your employment situation? Check out these resources:

• The Rehabilitation Research and Training Center (RRTC) on Learning and Working During the Transition to Adulthood recently debuted Comeback TV, a YouTube series to support youth and young adults with mental health challenges in their quest for independence. Videos include things to consider when looking for a job and where and how to apply.
• The RRTC on Improving Employment Outcomes for Individuals with Psychiatric Disabilities has a whole repository of employment and vocational recovery resources, designed to help people with psychiatric conditions choose, get, and keep employment

Are you an employer?

• Sign up for ADA Title I: Employment Requirements, a free self-paced course from the New England ADA Center.
• The Northeast ADA Center put together a collection of Tips for the Human Resources Professional.

Are you a rehabilitation or employment specialist?

• The Center on Transition to Employment has an archive of its webcasts on student outcomes, supported employment, and promising practices in transition.
• Rehabilitation counselors and employment specialists may be interested in Job Development and Job Retention for Persons in Recovery, a self-paced course from the RRTC on Improving Employment Outcomes for Individuals with Psychiatric Disabilities.
• The RRTC for Evidence Based Practice in Vocational Rehabilitation published findings from its Phase II study of evidence-based practices in public vocational rehab programs that lead to employment outcomes. All seven articles are available for FREE from the Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation.

Are you a policy person? An administrator? An employment wonk?

• Get the monthly nTIDE reports from the RRTC on Employment Policy and Measurement and the RRTC on Disability Statistics and Demographics. Each month they analyze the Bureau of Labor Statistics “first Friday” reports to identify trends in disability employment.
• The RRTC on Employer Practices Related to Employment Outcomes Among Individuals with Disabilities conducted an extensive review of literature in employer best practices.

Of course, we have a veritable TON of research on employment and disability available from our collection. We have so many research articles, books, and reports on employment in our collection that you might not know where to start! So try these hand-crafted search links:

• First, take a look at the current NIDILRR-funded employment outcomes projects, including RRTCs, field initiated projects, and more. Each record includes links to their publications in our collection.
• Focus your topic a bit to search REHABDATA:
  • Return to work
  • Workplace accommodations
  • Transition to employment
  • Employer attitudes
• Focus it even more to find what you’re looking for:
  • Most recent: Employment-related publications published in 2015
  • NIDILRR-funded: NIDILRR grantee employment research published in the last 3 years
  • Disability specific: Employment and psychiatric disabilities
  • Disability specific: Employment and spinal cord injury (it’s still National SCI Awareness Month, after all)
  • Disability specific: Employment and autism

We could go on and on, but now it’s your turn: Visit the advanced search page and try your hand at searching for employment research. Or chat with an information specialist and see how we can help you with your search!