Innovative Rehabilitation Training Program

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION <CFR>34 CFR Chapter III</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket ID ED-2024-OSERS-0131]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Innovative Rehabilitation Training Program</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, Department of Education. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final priority and requirements. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The U.S. Department of Education (Department) announces the final priority and requirements under the Innovative Rehabilitation Training program, Assistance Listing Number 84.263G. The Department may use the priority and requirements for competitions in fiscal year (FY) 2025 and later years. We take this action to promote the development of innovative and improved methods of training on promising vocational rehabilitation (VR) counseling, engagement, and service delivery strategies and practices to State VR agency personnel or other public or non-profit rehabilitation professionals and paraprofessionals (including those enrolled in master's or bachelor's level rehabilitation programs) to provide quality VR and supported employment services that lead to quality employment outcomes for individuals with disabilities. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> The priority and requirements are effective July 28, 2025. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Felipe Lulli, U.S. Department of Education, 400 Maryland Avenue SW, Room 4A10, Washington, DC 20202. Telephone: (202) 987-0128. Email: <E T="03">84.263G@ed.gov.</E> If you are deaf, hard of hearing, or have a speech disability and wish to access telecommunications relay services, please dial 7-1-1. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <E T="03">Purpose of Program:</E> The Innovative Rehabilitation Training program is designed to develop: (a) new types of training programs for rehabilitation personnel and to demonstrate the effectiveness of these new types of training programs for rehabilitation personnel in providing rehabilitation services to individuals with disabilities; (b) new and improved methods of training rehabilitation personnel so that there may be a more effective delivery of rehabilitation services to individuals with disabilities by designated State rehabilitation agencies and designated State rehabilitation units or other public or non-profit rehabilitation service agencies or organizations; and (c) new innovative training programs for VR professionals and paraprofessionals to have a 21st-century understanding of the evolving labor force and the needs of individuals with disabilities so they can more effectively provide VR services to individuals with disabilities. <E T="03">Assistance Listing Number:</E> 84.263G <E T="03">Program Authority:</E> 29 U.S.C. 709(c) and 772. <E T="03">Applicable Program Regulations:</E> 34 CFR parts 385 and 387. We published a notice of proposed priority and requirements (NPP) for this program in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on December 18, 2024 (89 FR 102841). That notice contained background information and the Department's reasons for proposing the priority and requirements. <E T="03">Public Comment:</E> In response to our invitation in the NPP, 18 parties submitted comments on the proposed priority and requirements. Generally, we do not address technical and other minor changes or suggested changes the law does not authorize us to make under the applicable statutory authority. In addition, we do not address general comments that raised concerns not directly related to the proposed priority or requirements. <E T="03">Analysis of Comments and Changes:</E> An analysis of the comments and of any changes in the priority and requirements since publication of the NPP follows. <E T="03">Comment:</E> Several commenters suggested that Topic Area 2 (Career Assessment Addressing Emerging Career and Employment Trends) should focus on improving the quality and availability of career assessment and vocational evaluation services through the development of formal, graduate-level training programs. A few commenters specifically noted that the discontinuation of formal, graduate-level training programs in recent years appears to have contributed to a shortage of qualified evaluators and VR professionals trained in using career assessment data. A few commenters also specified that, given these shortages, there are long waitlists for critical career assessment and vocational evaluation services. A few commenters specifically noted considerations for the ways that artificial intelligence (AI) can be part of career assessment. <E T="03">Discussion:</E> The Department acknowledges the value of career assessment and VR professionals with career assessment expertise. It is also clear that career assessment and VR professionals should be exposed to additional learning options (coursework, practicums, internships, etc.). As a general matter, the Department notes that Topic Area 2 already affords potential applicants flexibility in their proposed approaches, which may include AI. <E T="03">Changes:</E> Topic Area 2 has been revised to clarify that proposed projects under this topic area must focus on strengthening the capacity of career assessment and vocational evaluation professionals to serve VR participants under this priority. The topic area has also been revised to clarify that an applicant may propose various approaches to strengthen the capacity of career assessment and vocational evaluation professionals. Application Requirement C has also been revised to remove the specific reference to VR counselors in the training plan given that other VR professionals may also be part of such plan. <E T="03">Comment:</E> One commenter provided support for the importance of Topic Area 2 but noted that the other topic areas in the NPP were overly prescriptive, noting a general burden on data collection and entry requirements and caseload sizes. <E T="03">Discussion:</E> The Department contends that the commenter's concerns about prescriptiveness do not seem to pertain to other topic areas under this proposed priority and are rather general issues in the field of vocational rehabilitation. However, as a general matter, the Department notes that the priority already affords potential applicants flexibility in their proposed approaches, activities, and objectives in response to the topic area(s) within the priority. <E T="03">Changes:</E> None. <E T="03">Comment:</E> One commenter recommended adding language to Topic Area 2 requiring career development professionals working under this priority to hold one or more specified professional certifications and to maintain records showing that they have received 30 hours of continuing education every three years. <E T="03">Discussion:</E> We do not believe that the recommendation to require or verify specific standards or credentials is within the scope of purpose of the Innovative Rehabilitation Training Program, as defined in the program regulations at 34 CFR part 387. Moreover, we believe that this level of specificity is not necessary and that individual projects are best positioned to define these expectations for their participants. <E T="03">Changes:</E> None. <E T="03">Comment:</E> None. <E T="03">Discussion:</E> In proposed Topic Area 2 (Career Assessment Addressing Emerging Career and Employment Trends), among the list of potential activities that the Department proposed that applicants could address, the Department included “tracking emerging 21st century career trends in [. . .] green industries such as sustainable manufacturing and renewable energy[.]” Upon further review, we do not think it is necessary to prescribe that level of specificity, and that such activities would be subsumed under the broader heading of STEM and advanced technologies. The Department recognizes that applicants might choose to address emerging 21st century career trends in a number of ways that align to local context. <E T="03">Changes:</E> The reference to “green industries such as sustainable manufacturing and renewable energy” from Topic Area 2 has been removed. <E T="03">Comment:</E> One commenter recommended adding language in proposed Topic Area 5 (Engagement and Service Delivery Strategies for Underserved Populations) requiring the inclusion of cultural competence training components addressing the unique needs of various groups. <E T="03">Discussion:</E> Grantees are required to comply with the Federal civil rights laws, which prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin. Therefore, programs funded under this priority will provide the necessary training to all rehabilitation personnel, so that these personnel may effectively deliver rehabilitation services to individuals with disabilities. <E T="03">Changes:</E> Consistent with the Administration's priority that all recipients of services supported by Federal funding be treated equally, we have removed proposed Topic Area 5. We have also removed a reference to Topic Area 5 from requirement (a). <E T="03">Comment:</E> A few commenters recommended that the Department add a new topic area on services to transition-age youth and students with disabilities, including family engagement. The commenters indicated that this topic should be addressed distinctly from Topic Area 6 (Field Initiated), given the prioritized attention on collaboration among rehabilitation community providers, centers for independent living, rehabilitation counselors, and other transition professionals required by the new topic area. <E T="03">Discussion:</E> The Department concurs with the importance of transition services for youth and students with disabilities. An applicant may choose to address transition services t ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 31k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━