Virginia Commonwealth University received a grant from the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR) to fund the Rehabilitation Research and Training Center (RRTC) on Employment of Transition-Age Youth with Disabilities.

The grant was awarded $875,000 per year for a period of five years to establish this RRTC in partnership with Michigan State University, and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

The principal investigator is Paul Wehman, Ph.D. He is the Director of VCU-RRTC, and a professor in the Department of Counseling and Special Education in the School of Education.

This project serves as a National Resource Center to conduct groundbreaking research and implement training and technical assistance on employment among transition-age youth with disabilities. Project objectives focus on identifying culturally responsive practices to improve the employment outcomes of transition-age youth from communities.

These objectives include: (a) scaling up and evaluating the efficacy of a paid employment intervention for high school students with autism; (b) evaluating the efficacy of professional development training designed to improve paid employment outcomes of college students with disabilities; (c) exploring and developing a culturally responsive support and integrated services model for Indigenous youth; (d) developing and evaluating an intervention for at-risk youth with disabilities; (e) developing and evaluating a peer mentoring intervention to increase career development for students who are blind, low-vision, and deaf/blind; and (f) exploring the promotion of work and well-being for foster care youth with disabilities.

The grant began on September. 1, 2024 and will run for five years. The studies' results will be shared nationally and internationally through research briefs, journal articles, online trainings, conference presentations, and social media.