Voices of a Rural Community: How to Sustain and Improve Work Experiences for Youth with Disabilities

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to develop an understanding of how work experiences in rural Hawai’ian communities can be sustained and improved for youth with disabilities. Employing a basic qualitative research design, this study captured the perspectives of rural community members who provided work experiences for youth with disabilities. Data analysis revealed key factors to sustain work experience partnerships between schools and community members: (a) effective communication, (b) competent personnel, and (c) the dispositions of students. The findings also revealed that there were missed opportunities for youth with disabilities during their work experiences because schools did not fully disclose the work needs and goals of students. The community members and their work sites could have been more effective if disability training and support was provided. The findings provide valuable insight into how work experiences can be sustained and improved for rural youth with disabilities.

Keywords

rural special education transition to work youth with disabilities school–community partnerships

Despite the efforts to improve the postschool employment outcomes for youth with disabilities, youth continue to struggle to find decent wage jobs in inclusive work environments, which is especially important for successful employment (Lindsay et al., 2021; Newman et al., 2010). Participating in paid work experiences while still in school has shown to be a promising predictor of post school employment (Mazzotti et al., 2021). Living in a rural community can present additional factors that can positively or negatively influence youths’ development of essential work skills to improve their employability and ultimately gain employment. Because of limited work opportunities, optimizing the use of existing work sites may be necessary for schools that are situated in rural areas. The following sections describe the importance of accessing paid employment during high school, the benefits of work experience, accessing work in rural communities, and the importance of community partnerships.

Importance of Paid Employment During High School

Several studies conducted over a decade have shown the importance of participating in paid employment during high school. Carter et al. (2012) examined the extent to which student demographics are associated with post-school employment for students with severe disabilities. Paid employment and spending >25% of the day in a community-based work-study were associated with post-school employment (Carter et al., 2012). This study was significant because it also revealed that working without pay had no influence on post-school employment.

Mazzotti et al. (2016) conducted a meta-analysis that extended upon Test et al.’s (2009) work on the in-school predictors of postschool success. This study found statistically significant effects for employment as a predictor of postschool employment. Later, Mazzotti et al. (2021) identified additional evidence that supported paid work experience as a promising predictor of employment. Findings from these correlational studies strongly support paid employment as a predictor of postschool success.

All three aforementioned studies advocate the need to establish connections between employers and students to access paid employment and foster postschool success (Carter et al., 2012; Mazzotti et al., 2016, 2021). Additionally, they recommended the need to propose policies that connect students with paid employment (Mazzotti et al., 2021), reach out to local employers as a source for job leads, and operationalize paid employment experiences to inform stakeholders about what it is and how it can be implemented authentically (Carter et al., 2012).

Benz et al. (2000) proposed paid employment for youth with disabilities as an essential avenue to change their employment trajectories and access competitive integrated employment. Youth with disabilities that have an established work history of earning at or above the minimum wage will be in a better position to self-advocate for fair wages in future job opportunities. Furthermore, it is more likely that youth with disabilities will feel supported and perceive themselves as productive employees that belong in the workforce if they are offered wages at levels comparable to employees without disabilities that perform similar duties. When youth work with pay, naturally, they will be much more motivated, committed, and engaged in the workplace. Hence, soliciting the perspectives from employers who provide wages to youth with disabilities can generate ideas of how to access and improve paid employment opportunities.

Benefits of Work Experience

Work-based learning is a strategy that has been used to strengthen the transition of learning from the classroom to authentic experiences in the world of work. From a national standpoint, work-based learning has been used as part of career pathways to connect education with current social and economic demands. Offering early work experiences to youth can expose them to a variety of work experiences that align with their career interests and strengths. These work experiences may include job shadowing, informational interviews, worksite tours, on-the-job training, summer employment, and paid employment (Luecking et al., 2017).

Work experiences provide real-time training in a work environment. Numerous benefits include developing work habits, building basic workplace competence, gaining occupational awareness of industries in the community, shaping work preferences, expanding job networks and work history, building relations with employers and coworkers who can be used as future job references, and developing confidence or self-pride (Benz at al., 2000; Carter et al., 2012; National Technical Assistance Center on Transition [NTACT], 2017; Riesen & Oertle, 2019; White & Weiner, 2004). These benefits in combination can foster valuable learning experiences that empower youth with disabilities to make informed decisions about their future in the workforce. Despite this, the participation rates of youth with disabilities in paid work experiences remain limited (Awsumb et al., 2022; Bonaccio et al., 2020). Employers can provide vital feedback about the work performance of students who participate in work experiences. Gathering input directly from community members that provide work-based learning settings may lend valuable information to increase the quantity and quality of authentic work experiences.

Importance of Community Partnerships

The community is the environment wherein youth can practice and develop essential work habits and skills to improve their employability (Benz et al., 2000; NTACT, 2017). Work-related activities such as career exposure, job shadowing, volunteering, service-learning, internships, and paid employment originate in the community. However, securing school–community partnerships is an ongoing challenge among secondary transition programs (Carter et al., 2016; Schutz et al., 2021). Access to these experiences continues to be limited and preparation efforts for students with disabilities who have the desire to enter the workforce and gain a living wage remain inadequate (Bonaccio et al., 2020; Carter et al., 2016).

Community members can be a valuable resource to gain knowledge of where the industry is heading and identify industry-related skills that students need to be competitive in the workforce. The community can also provide recommendations or identify innovative solutions to employment challenges faced by secondary transition programs (Carter et al., 2009; Mazzotti et al., 2021; Schutz et al., 2021). Community partners may have the most important role because they control the environment wherein youth can practice and develop the work habits and skills they need to improve their employability. Thus, gaining input from rural community members that provide work-related activities may lead to innovative and strategic solutions to secure future work experience partnerships especially in rural areas where job opportunities and employment resources are often limited.

Accessing Work in Rural Communities

Rural communities have their own set of characteristics, which render their circumstances dramatically different than those of urban communities. Rural areas have the highest rates of deep poverty, unemployment, and poor growth in the labor force when compared with urban areas (U.S. Department of Agriculture [USDA], Economic Research Service [ERS], 2021). Rural communities are smaller and contain fewer businesses, and a smaller number of businesses means fewer employment opportunities for job seekers. According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Economic Research Service (ERS, 2018), there is a wage gap of US$7,622 between the average median earnings of urban and rural adults, ages 25 and older.

Living in a rural community can make matters much more difficult for youth with disabilities who are trying to gain work experience. The availability of work with good pay is oftentimes very bleak, so many youth and young adults will choose to move out of their rural communities to secure better work opportunities (Niccolai et al., 2022). Seven out of 10 persons with a disability live with their parents or relatives (Burke et al., 2018). This means that moving out of a rural community to secure employment may not always be an option for youth with disabilities. In many cases, the ability to access work experiences is severely limited unless rural youth with disabilities are willing to travel long distances.

It can be an incredible challenge for rural youth with disabilities to improve their employability (Commission for Rural Communities [CRC], 2013). Those who live in rural areas have experienced a much harder time gaining access to work experiences and obtaining paid employment (Irvin et al., 2012; Kinnison et al., 2005; Meece et al., 2009). Those who find jobs were more likely to earn lower wages and work in jobs that have little opportunity for career advancement or technical training (CRC, 2013). Recent literature, although limited, suggests that people with disabilities can thrive with the potential to earn income and gain economic stability through different pathways such as self-employment and entrepreneurship (Martin & Honig, 2020). This type of employment can offer customized employment built around the lifestyle of the person (Shaheen, 2016). This pathway is particularly promising for youth and young adults that reside in rural areas because it offers additional employment options that can be customized to each person’s circumstances.

Purpose

The purpose of the study was to gather the perspectives of rural community members who provided work experiences to youth with disabilities to gain a better understanding of how work experiences can be sustained and improved. The following research question guided this study:

Research Question 1 (RQ1): How can work experiences for rural youth with disabilities be sustained and improved?

Method

Prior to this study being conducted, approval was obtained from an Institutional Review Board. A qualitative research design was chosen to gather a rich description of the perspectives and experiences held by the community partners. A semi-structured interview with open-ended conversations was also purposefully selected to explore topics that emerged from the open-ended conversations (Merriam, 2009). The types of data sources included one-on-one interviews, documents, and an observation at a worksite.

Researcher’s Background

I was the single researcher that completed this study. My theoretical approach was based on actual lived experience of growing up in a rural distant coffee farming community and from personal experience teaching college and career readiness to young adults with and without disabilities who also resided in rural communities. Many of the young adults came from ethnic minority groups and their families were living well below the poverty level. From these experiences, I realized that although young adults have a desire to go to college, oftentimes it is more important for them to find a job to help their families meet living expenses. Many of the young adults did not have a history of work experience, and job opportunities in the community were very limited due to its rural nature.

These problems made very clear the need to learn about existing community and work experiences to which students were being exposed before they left high school. I later worked on several projects with rural high school transition coordinators. From those experiences, I realized that very few school–community partnerships existed for youth with disabilities. These understandings fueled my interest to investigate those existing community partnerships further to gather insight into how work experiences can be secured, sustained, and further improved for youth with disabilities.

Target Population

The population for this study came from rural distant towns in Hawaii. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS, 2000) identified the term rural by its land type. According to the BLS, rural distant refers to a territory that is located 5 to 25 miles from an urbanized area. The towns in this study were categorized as rural distant because the average distance from the rural towns to the nearest urban city was 24 miles. The average population of the rural communities was 15,000 residents.

The target population for this study was community members who represented businesses or organizations that (a) represented competitive, supported, or integrated employment, (b) provided work-based learning settings for youth with disabilities, or (c) partnered with a rural school to train youth with disabilities transitioning to work.

Recruitment Procedures

I contacted transition coordinators from four rural public high schools by phone and email and coordinated a time to physically meet with these coordinators on their school campus to obtain information about organizations and businesses for which they had existing partnerships. The businesses and organizations had to meet one or more of the above inclusion criteria to be considered an eligible participant. Some businesses and organizations may have been disqualified from participating because they identified themselves as being a provider of, or as representing an, out-of-school adult employment program, a sheltered work or unintegrated work environment, or a state or federal public agency. The transition coordinators from four rural high schools referred a total of 14 businesses and organizations as potential and eligible participants. I contacted each business and organization by phone. If I was unable to reach a potential participant by phone, I physically visited the businesses or organizations to establish contact. During each conversation, I introduced the purpose of the study, and each business and organization confirmed that they met one or more of the inclusion criteria.

Each community partner received a copy of the informed consent form, which provided a full disclosure of the details for the research study. Also, a full disclosure of the types of risks the participant might encounter was provided, both orally and in writing. The community partners were guided through each section of the document, using language that was understandable, stopping at the end of each section to ask if the participant had any questions or concerns before proceeding. Each community partner acknowledged their understanding of the informed consent information and their right to voluntarily participate and/or withdraw from the study at any time without providing a reason. The community partners were then invited to volunteer as a participant in the study. After giving a verbal confirmation of their willingness to volunteer, the community partners signed the informed consent form. Copies of their signed documents were provided to them for their records.

Participants

Of the 14 eligible participants, 11 volunteered to participate, and 10 (71%) participated in the study. Of the 10 participants, 6 represented businesses and 4 represented organizations from a rural community. Six of the participants had maintained a school partnership for between one and five years. Four participants had maintained a school partnership for 10 to 15 years (see Table 1). On average, there were 3.5 community partnerships per rural high school, and the number of students participating at each community work site ranged from one to four students.

Table 1.

Participant Demographics.

Participant	Community partner type	Years of partnership
1	Organization	5
2	Organization	15
3	Business	1
4	Business	3
5	Organization	1
6	Business	1
7	Organization	2
8	Business	12
9	Business	10
10	Business	15

Materials

Documents were gathered and analyzed to verify the sequence of events that occurred over time (Miles & Huberman, 1994) to sustain partnerships and the types of work experiences that were being provided by community members. Documents included communication memos, schedules of activities, flyers for school-related activities and events, improvement plans, and yearly reports. One observation was conducted at the worksite in the rural community to gain a deeper sense of the community’s role and factors that sustained the school–community partnership. All 10 participants completed an interview that consisted of four questions:

Interview Question 1: What worked to solidify and sustain work experience partnerships with the school?

Interview Question 2: What factors inhibited school–community partnerships?

Interview Question 3: What areas continue to remain as needs to improve the work experiences of rural youth?

Interview Question 4: What comments or suggestions can you provide to improve or expand work experiences? What could have been done better, more of, less of, etc.?

Data Analysis

Tesch’s (1990) eight-step coding process supported the analysis of the language-based data collected from interviews, documents, and the observation. A combination of predetermined and emerging codes was used to name the data (Bogdan & Biklen, 1992). Data relating to sustaining work experience partnerships with a school were coded Sustain; data relating to work partnership challenges experienced by the community partner were coded Challenges; data relating to recommendations to improve the work experience partnerships were coded Improve and Expand. Data that were not relevant to the question were extracted and stored in a separate file.

To account for the difference in judgment that can be made during the coding process, controlling the coding accuracy was accomplished by reviewing the data for new codes that might have been missed. There were times when data were assigned more than one code. To establish the credibility of data analysis process, I conducted multiple reviews of the data, and codes were used to ensure the accuracy and credibility of the data to solidify the major themes and patterns. In the results, thick descriptions and direct quotes were included to accurately represent the perspectives of the participants.

All participants were offered the opportunity to review and check the accuracy of data collected through member checks. Every participant reviewed and approved the accuracy of their input. One participant requested to edit their words to clarify their thoughts on sustaining partnerships. Revisions were made based on the participant’s recommendations. They reviewed the manuscript a second time for accuracy and provided a final approval without further requests for changes.

Results

The purpose of this study was to understand how work experiences in rural communities can be sustained and strengthened for youth with disabilities from the perspective of community partners. Analysis of data revealed three overarching themes:

sustaining partnerships,

community challenges, and

opportunities to improve and expand work experiences.

Sustaining Partnerships

When the community partners described what worked to solidify and sustain partnerships with the school, their responses emphasized (a) effective communication, (b) competent personnel, and (c) the dispositions of students. Community partners acknowledged open and ongoing communication as a key factor to sustain work experience partnerships with the school. One participant said, “Keeping the communication open is always the best thing for this. Whether it be an email or a letter, or even a phone call.” Another participant said, “Life in catering is busy. We don’t always stop and think, ‘Hey, we could use some help.’” They explained that the school was “a definite bonus” by checking in frequently to see if help were ever needed. One participant emphasized, “Working together is everything. You’re as much of a recipient as you are a provider. The relationship is reciprocal.”

Participants appreciated when teachers provided recommendations to support students in the workplace. They also commended the performance of student supervisors. “She’s been the backbone. She’s been here for every class and she can portray to the kids what needs to be done.” When conducting the observation of the worksite, the student supervisor attended the worksite with students and coached students, as needed, to complete tasks in the kitchen. The student supervisor mentioned that she had a culinary background. Her knowledge of proper food preparation and handling was a great advantage. At the same time, she noted that she could only handle supervising three students at the worksite. If there were more school staff available, more students would have been able to participate at this worksite.

According to community partners, the disposition of students was important to sustain partnerships with the school. For example, a community partner said, “I’m willing to take whoever wants to come if they are willing to work.” At the same time, the community partners wanted students to enjoy the experience, feel good about learning new things, and understand that they had done a good job. One participant told students, “You got to be able to push forward and take what you want out of this to move on.”

Community Challenges

Community members were asked to identify factors that inhibited school–community partnerships. These factors were primarily related to (a) training students with different types of disabilities, (b) documenting the existence of a work training program, and (c) having an obligation to operate a business. Five of the 10 community partners felt they lacked knowledge about disabilities, especially when it related to students with disabilities in the workplace. They were unsure of how to work with persons with disabilities and did not know what questions they should have asked. One community partner said, “They [the school] didn’t disclose maybe until the second or third phone call that the student was going to come with some disabilities.” Another community partner said, “We are not trained to work with special needs. I’m patient and understanding with this because other companies probably wouldn’t.”

Three community partners addressed the challenge of working with students who had limitations relating to their disability. These limitations led to difficulties with multitasking, soft skills, and performing physical duties. The first community partner said, “Some of them were accident prone.” The second partner stated, “This could be due to many different reasons; I’m only getting the most severe. We should be getting the whole range.” The third community partner said, “Nowadays, businesses will actually have employees doing multi-task jobs. Not only cleaning duties but possibly cashiering. We’re not going to have somebody work eight hours just cleaning.” As a result, the community partners had to spend time learning about each student’s abilities to find work skills that were more appropriate for them to learn in the workplace.

When gathering and analyzing the data from documents, there were no formal agreements or formal documents between schools and community partners to show that a partnership existed. The community partners described their challenge of verifying the existence of a work program because agreements between the school and community partner had been informally established via verbal consent. Community partners further described how frequent turnover of management and teachers made it even more difficult to verify the existence of and sustain the work experience program. Frequent turnover in upper management affected the work program because time had to be spent informing new managers about the school partnership. Teacher turnover also meant time spent rekindling a partnership with the school.

Scheduling time for direct training was another challenge. One community partner expressed difficulty in teaching students while trying to run their business. They said, “The same time you’re providing this service to them, but you’re also trying to run the business. So, it’s hard to split yourself. You can’t, because you have your actual work duties.” Another community partner raised the issue of not being able to schedule students to work on weekends when the business needed the most help.

Last, one participant who provided work readiness training on school campuses felt there was a lack of support from the school. They felt teachers could have participated more while the training was being delivered. Also, they would have appreciated more support from the school and its counselors to assist with attendance issues.

Opportunities to Improve and Expand Partnerships

The community partners provided recommendations to improve and expand school–community partnerships for youth with disabilities. Suggestions for improvement included (a) providing business support, (b) maximizing the benefits of a school–community partnership, and (c) strengthening the components of the work experience program. The types of support for businesses included providing a full disclosure about the students’ (a) abilities, (b) behaviors, and (c) interests, and providing training about disabilities in the workplace, including guidance to identify work tasks for students to develop over time at the work site. One community partner said, “I’d like to be able to make this a little bit more inclusive.” Another partner said, “I was completely ignorant as to what their capabilities were, what I should be asking them to do, and what is too much for them to do. Perhaps having that information and presenting that to the business first of all is really helpful.”

Four community partners suggested that schools make greater use of their community partners and their workplace. One partner said, “I don’t know if it was because they thought they would be bothering me, but I would have been more than happy to do a greater amount, and my staff would have been as well.” Community partners could help school personnel develop curriculum aligned to the industry needs and provide input on the skills students need to be competitive in the world of work. The community partners recommended maximizing the availability of work sites by maximizing the number of students a community partner is willing to accept and by continuously rotating new students into positions to prevent job vacancies. Four community partners suggested gathering testimonials from current partners for recruitment efforts. One partner stated,

I myself would like to be a voice or advocate to let them [other businesses] know, the students are good. They are limited to what they can do but at the same time they fit our needs, they are productive.

Five community partners identified ways to improve the program components of the community and work experience. Their suggestions for improvement included identifying the roles and expectations for the community and the school, teaching students basic skills before they begin their experience (e.g., follow directions, step-by-step), setting goals and targets for students to accomplish in their experience, and providing the community partner feedback on the student’s performance relating to their experience.

The community partners provided numerous strategies for schools to expand their work experience partnerships. The recommendations were related to (a) recruitment, (b) incentives, and (c) expanding community and work experiences. Their strategies included hosting a meet and greet with purposefully selected businesses and organizations and providing a press release or an advertisement in the community paper of the need for placements for students with disabilities. Other strategies included using current partners as advocates in the community, reaching out to high school alumni for potential partnerships, and focusing recruitment on larger businesses rather than small ones to leverage their greater flexibility and capacity. They also suggested contacting churches or immigrant centers for community and work opportunities.

Three community partners identified incentives that schools could offer. The type of incentives included emphasizing free labor, offering training or a workplace consultant, proposing future funding possibilities for nonprofits, and knowing the business to identify their needs that a partnership could meet.

Recommendations to expand work experiences for youth with disabilities included providing more options for experience across different settings, such as a small snack shop, bowling alley, theater, or golf course. Another recommendation included using the school campus as a place for students to acquire work skills before they transition to the community to develop their work skills. The last recommendation included customizing pathways for students at an earlier age (see Table 2).

Table 2.

Summary of Themes and Descriptions.

Themes	Descriptions
Sustaining partnerships	• Implement open communication on a regular basis. • Ensure all shareholders are competent to serve in their role. • Ensure student dispositions reflect a desire to work and readiness for the workplace. • Provide frequent check-ins to inquire how the student is doing. • Invite the community partner to school events. • Inform and train staff to support students in the workplace. • Be an active member of a school committee.
Community challenges	• Internal conflict of communicating the value of students with disabilities in the workplace. • Frequent changeover in upper management. • Lacking knowledge about disabilities and how to support a wide range of youth with disabilities. • Providing attention and time to students because the business comes first. • Insufficient amount of work for the duration of the studentʻs workday. • Partnerships have to rekindle when teachers leave the school or community. • Limited schedule of students’ availability to work (weekdays only). • Attendance issues with afterschool work skill programs. • Students with difficulties in soft skills, multitasking, following directions, or are accident-prone. • Verifying the existence of a work program when documents or formal agreements are unavailable.
Opportunities to improve partnerships	• Provide consultation to business on disabilities and how to create a positive work environment for students with disabilities. • Be open and share about the student’s interests, abilities, and disabilities. • Assist the business in identifying work tasks for the student. • Provide community partners strategies to prevent and deescalate unwanted behaviors. • Utilize the work setting to the maximum extent (time and duration). • Involve businesses by giving industry insight for the students’ programming. • Ensure students have developed basic skills before entering work experience. • Identify roles and expectations for all shareholders. • Set goals and targets for the community or work experience. • Provide feedback to the community partner about how the student is progressing in the workplace.
Opportunities to expand partnerships	• Be open about the needs of the school when conducting recruitment efforts. • Emphasize free labor and staff training as an incentive (meet the needs of the business). • Deliver press releases or post advertisements in community papers. • Organize a meet and greet with businesses and organizations. • Offer training or a workplace consultant to community partners that support people with disabilities in the workplace. • Provide more work options across different settings. • Utilize the school campus and its services as a place to gain work experience.
	• Reach out to alumni for partnership opportunities.• Tap into larger businesses rather than mom and pop stores.• Secure partnerships with nonprofit organizations in the community with an emphasis on securing future grant funding.• Contact churches and the immigration center for job opportunities.• Utilize current partners as advocates in the community to gain new community partners.• Develop a work program that maximizes the use of all available work settings (start with the school, then move to the community).• Customize pathways for students at an earlier age.

Discussion

The purpose of this study was to develop further understanding of how to sustain and improve work experiences for youth with disabilities in rural communities. Through this study, I gathered insight directly from community members who provide work experiences for youth with disabilities in rural communities. The findings of this study indicated that effective communication, competent personnel, and the dispositions of students heavily influenced the community partners’ decisions to remain in their partnerships with a school. Communication was effective when it was frequent, open, and supportive. Communication was often accomplished face-to-face or via phone call or email. The community needs to feel supported and voiced an appreciation when the school regularly followed up to see how the student and community partner were doing.

The partners were more likely to continue a relationship with a school when they worked with competent transition coordinators, teachers, and student supervisors. For example, competent student supervisors were always available to support the student and were aware of the day-to-day operations in the workplace.

Finally, the community partners were more willing to continue the partnership when the school assigned students who had positive attitudes such as showing the desire to work and an interest in learning new things. This finding emphasized the importance of identifying students who are work ready before they participate in a community or work experience. One possible reason why students might not display positive attitudes may be due to a misalignment between the workplace and the student’s interest. Finding the right fit is obviously important for everyone involved. In this study, schools had an average of 3.5 work site partnerships and a range of one to four students per work site. If schools only have a few partnerships, they most likely will experience greater difficulty in finding a good job fit for students. These findings can be used by stakeholders to operationalize work experiences and positively influence community partners’ decision to remain in a school partnership (Carter et al., 2012). This may necessitate establishing a team to exert a more coordinated effort to ensure that the needs of community partners are met.

Training students while running a business was a challenge. Half of the community partners did not have prior experience working with people with disabilities. Partners expressed difficulty in identifying work tasks that were based on students’ abilities. They spent time getting to know the student and learning how to work with and support students with different types of disabilities. As a result, they experienced a steep learning curve to carry out their roles and responsibilities in managing a business and its operations while training youth with disabilities. Community partners believed that having prior working knowledge of disabilities and types of workplace supports to train students with disabilities could improve their readiness and capacity to provide work experiences for youth with disabilities. Participants suggested that schools offer businesses disability training and consultation on suitable work tasks and types of workplace supports that can benefit the student.

Frequent turnover among management and teachers was a problem in these rural communities. Because no formal agreements had been drawn between the community partner and the school, they had to spend time rebuilding partnerships with schools and reaffirming approvals with new management to continue the community work experiences for students with disabilities. They expressed difficulty in communicating with upper management about the value of having students with disabilities in the workplace. Frequent turnover of transition coordinators also resulted in the inability to form a solid work program in the community.

Other suggestions to improve partnerships were related to transition services: (a) clarify the roles and expectations for everyone involved, (b) develop and identify students’ basic work skills, (c) set goals and targets, and (d) share student progress with community partners. Community partners were not educated about transition services. According to the community partners, these important components of transition services were not being documented in community experiences. This omission is very concerning, considering that valuable data from these work experiences could be used toward more effective transition planning and programming.

The responses of the community partners suggested that schools may not be maximizing the benefits from a school–community partnership. Community partners can provide more than just a placement for students. They have direct experience in their industry and were willing to provide insight toward the development of curriculum. The community partners’ experience of working with students with disabilities was very positive. Their experiences could be turned into testimonials to draw in more community partners. One community partner voiced their willingness to be an advocate in the community for students with disabilities. Another community partner stated that they had the capacity to serve more students than they were currently serving, and another community partner wanted schools to continue rotating students into their positions to prevent job vacancies. This evidence suggests that there are untapped opportunities that schools could benefit from within their existing partnerships.

Mazzotti et al. (2021) recommended the need for policies that connect students with paid employment. These findings indicate there is pressing work to be done to sustain access to competitive integrated employment for students with disabilities. This will require collaboration focused on postschool employment outcomes and the involvement of all stakeholders (OSERS, 2020). The following section provides specific recommendations to expand school–community partnerships.

Overall, the community partners were a valuable source from which to gather recommendations to expand school–community partnerships. Their recommendations centered on three main areas: recruitment, incentives, and expanding experiences for students with disabilities. To improve recruitment efforts, community partners suggested that schools develop prior knowledge about each business and organization to be more purposeful and selective in their recruitment efforts. Every business and organization located in a rural area could use the extra help. Offering incentives centered on meeting the needs of the business such as offering employee training, workplace consultants, and future funding for nonprofit organizations could be used to recruit new partnerships.

Schools can expand the experiences of youth with disabilities by providing work-related experiences across different settings. Limited work sites provide limited views of what it looks like to work in an industry. Community partners suggested developing a program on the school campus for students to acquire their basic work skills. Once they have performed a set of skills, they could move to a community work site where they would further hone a specific set of job skills. Then, students could rotate to another community site to practice their job skills in different settings in a preferred industry. Doing so can result in customizing pathways and starting training at an earlier age. Community partners commented that implementing a program such as this could be accomplished with a sufficient number of school-based and community-based settings.

Limitations

This study was limited to a single geographic area that included a small sample consisting of 10 participants. Therefore, the findings from this study are insufficient to generalize to wider populations. Only one observation at a work site was performed due to schedule conflicts and the unavailability of managers to be present during an observation. Therefore, this qualitative study primarily relied upon data gathered from documents and interviews with the 10 participants. The accuracy of their thoughts and ideas from personal experience and interpretations of those experiences have its limitations based on personal opinions and prior experiences.

Regrettably, I did not gather more specific details about the participants and the businesses and organizations they represented. Specific details such as the type of business, the total number of employees, students by disability type, or the number of hours students worked may have revealed additional findings. For example, the number of employees or the number of hours students worked at a worksite may influence the perspectives of businesses.

This study was also limited to just four questions to participants. Although the questions were specific and directly focused on gathering insight on ways to sustain and improve work experiences for rural youth with disabilities, the phrasing of some of the questions may have been leading. For example, interview Question 1 asked participants what worked to solidify and sustain work experience partnerships with their school. This suggests that the partnership was solidified. In this study, more than half of the participants had fairly new partnerships (<5 years) with their partner school.

Implications for Future Research

If the goal of community and work experiences is to develop employability and obtain paid employment, future studies should examine the type of work skills students attain across both school-based and community-based programs that promote transition to work. Examining the attainment of skills and how students are being taught across both settings might inform the field about specific activities or experiences that are necessary to enhance employability and the achievement of postschool employment goals. It may be beneficial to use a mixed-method approach to quantify such data. For example, a survey can be used to gather information about the types of work skills students attain and interview questions could be used in focus groups to identify how students are being taught across school-based and community-based programs.

Implications for Practice

According to Luecking (2004), the biggest challenges in school–community partnerships are time, money, and transportation. In this study, however, the biggest challenge expressed by community partners was the community’s lack of knowledge and experience in working with people with disabilities. The community partners spent time working through different challenges relating to disabilities. They experienced difficulty working with students who displayed behavior problems and students with limited abilities. The community partners would have benefited from disability awareness training. One implication for practice is to offer disability consultants, training, and support that are tailored to the needs of community partners who provide work experiences for students. School personnel who facilitate transition to work have expertise in disabilities and should utilize their experience to foster the school–community partnership. Teachers, as consultants, can provide follow-up and help manage changes that might occur from implementing training, accommodations, and support in the workplace (Luecking & Mooney, 2002). Training and consultation can improve the community’s competence in working with students with disabilities, thereby increasing their willingness to continue and possibly expand their partnership to serve more students with disabilities.

Employment rates could be improved if every stakeholder collaboratively focused on postschool outcomes and the systems that serve them (Fabian & Luecking, 2015; NTACT, 2017). An essential program characteristic of community experiences is observing and documenting students’ attainment of desired behaviors and skills (Rowe et al., 2014). This study found that community partners in rural communities were unaware of students’ postschool employment goals and would have been more mindful and selective of the skills that students were developing if they had known the goals and interests of students. The second implication for practice is to ensure that the employment goals of students are disclosed to community partners and establish a method to track and share the progress of students at each worksite with stakeholders who are directly involved. If the employment goals of students are made known, the community can provide vital feedback and information about the development of work skills and the work performance of students who participate in the community (Carter et al., 2009; Mazzotti et al., 2021). Community partners provided valuable performance feedback to teachers about their student workers’ progress, however, community partners did not recall receiving copies of documents detailing students’ progress and performance throughout their community or work experience. Consequently, community members were unsure if the employment outcomes of students were met. Going forward, it is imperative to document and share the progress of students with those directly involved with developing their employability. The documentation can also be used as evidence that a partnership exists.

The focus of this study was to develop a better understanding of how work experiences in rural communities can be sustained and improved for youth with disabilities from the perspective of businesses and organizations that partnered with rural schools to provide work experiences. Based on the findings, teachers rarely asked the community partners if they were willing to hire the student at the end of their work experience. In fact, only 1 out of 10 rural community partners mentioned that a teacher persistently asked throughout the school year for paid job opportunities. According to participants, the schools’ efforts to ask for paid employment were infrequent and resulted in an abrupt end to the student’s community experience and perhaps a missed chance to secure paid employment for the student. If the postsecondary goal of students is to obtain employment, teachers need to keep the end goal in mind and help the student seek paid employment from the community.

Conclusion

The community may play the most important role for youth with disabilities who are trying to obtain paid employment. The findings indicated that partnerships in rural communities were limited, a fact that stressed the importance of maximizing the available resources from existing partnerships. Although work experiences provide opportunities for students with disabilities to access employment experience and participate in a variety of inclusive activities that promote employability, this study revealed that many youths with disabilities complete high school without accessing these valuable experiences. Missed chances to experience valuable opportunities are still common for many youths with disabilities. This study on rural school–community partnerships confirmed that very few partnerships are effectively purposed for transition to work. Findings from this study highlighted the importance of involving all who are connected with community partnerships to meaningfully address planning, monitoring, and supporting youth in their work experiences. The school alone cannot successfully address these issues. Efforts to improve the postschool employment outcomes of students with disabilities will require the involvement of teachers, employers, organizations, community members, parents, and students with disabilities.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Joy Mahiko

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