Erik Carter, Ph.D., FAIDD, is a Professor in the Department Special Education at Vanderbilt University and a member of the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center. His research and teaching focuses on evidence-based strategies for supporting access to the general curriculum and promoting valued roles in school, work, and community settings for children and adults with intellectual disability, autism, and multiple disabilities. Prior to receiving his doctorate, he worked as a high school teacher and transition specialist. He has published widely in the areas of educational and transition services for children and youth with severe disabilities. He was the recipient of the Distinguished Early Career Research Award from the Council for Exceptional Children, the Early Career Award from the American Association for Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, the Patricia L. Sitlington Research in Transition Award from the Division on Career Development and Transition, the Research Award from the Division on Autism and Developmental Disabilities, and the Young Professional Award from the Association of University Centers on Disabilities.
Donald Taylor is the Training Manager at the Youth Employment Solutions Center and the producer of YES To Employment.
Announcer: You’re listening to YES! To Employment, a podcast series that seeks to improve competitive, integrated employment outcomes for transition-aged youth and young adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Today we are talking with Erik Carter, Associate Professor in the Department of Special Education at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College. He is also the Principal Investigator for TennesseeWorks, the State of Tennessee’s Partnership in Employment project. The Tennessee PIE project is in its fifth and final year in its implementation, so we wanted to talk to Professor Carter about his perspective and what the TennesseeWorks team has learned, having been through the nearly complete course of a Partnership in Employment project implementation.
Complete transcript forthcoming
Announcer: You’ve been listening to YES! To Employment, a podcast that seeks to improve competitive, integrated employment outcomes for transition-aged youth and young adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
To learn more about TennesseeWorks, the State of Tennessee’s Partnerships in Employment project, visit www.tennesseeworks.org.
For more about YES! To Employment, including show notes, links to the resources discussed, a complete transcript and a schedule of episodes, visit www.yestoemployment.org/podcast. You can subscribe through iTunes or your favorite Android podcast app to have the series delivered automatically to your device so you never miss an episode. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please give us a rating on iTunes. Ratings will help us get the series in front of more listeners.
YES! To Employment is a production of the Youth Employment Solutions Center, the national Training and Technical Assistance Center that serves as a hub of information and expertise for the Partnerships in Employment (PIE) state projects. The YES! Center is a collaboration of TASH and TransCen. You can learn more about TASH at tash.org and more about TranCen at transcen.org. You can receive updates from the YES! Center on this podcast and our other activities by following us on Facebook or on twitter at @YEStoEmployment.
Partnerships in Employment is a series of seed grants funded by the Administration for Community Living’s Administration on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, made to states for the purpose of transforming state disability support systems to competitive, integrated employment. AIDD is dedicated to ensuring that individuals with developmental disabilities and their families are able to fully participate in, and contribute to all aspects of community life in the United States and its territories.
Music for YES! To Employment is an original composition and performance by Sunny Cefaratti, the Co-Director and Autistic Self Advocacy Mentor at the Musical Autist. You can learn more about the Musical Autist at www.themusicalautist.org.
We’ll have another episode on competitive integrated employment for you in the near future.
This interview was originally recorded on 16 March 2017.
The audio of this interview and the transcript have been lightly edited for clarity.
