FAQ
- What type of training services does Lifeworks provide?
- What type of employment opportunities does Lifeworks offer?
- What special training programs are offered to help individuals prepare for work?
- How do I help my loved one join the Lifeworks Employment Services Program? What is the process?
- What happens first?
- What costs are involved?
- What are Lifeworks' funding sources?
- Lifeworks provides a variety of skill assessment and vocational training services at our Norwood and West Roxbury Training & Fulfillment Centers.
- Career and work goals are based on the interests, goals, skills, and abilities of each individual.
- Our full-time Job Development Manager, Beverly Bass, is responsible for working closely with each individual to develop an appropriate job search and placement process.
Over the years, Lifeworks has successfully placed 100s of individuals in community-based employment, with an exceptional retention rate of over 85%.
Our Employment Opportunities include:
- Competitive employment in the community
- Group employment and mobile work crews
- Paid contract work in our Employment and Training Centers
- A combination of any of the above
- Several times a year Lifeworks conducts a 9-week "World of Work" (W.O.W.) Training Program, focused on developing critical "soft skills," such as proper workplace behavior, self-confidence, self-esteem and interviewing strategies.
- These "soft skills" are necessary for anyone to succeed in the "world of work," but especially someone with a developmental disability who may be transitioning from school or a workshop setting to community-based employment.
- The W.O.W Program helps participants identify individual skills and translate their own talents and hobbies into marketable skills.
- To maintain and promote marketable skills, ongoing training takes place in our Employment Centers. Professional job coaches teach skills and tasks such alphabetizing, filing, bagging, sorting and counting, as well as custodial work, to small groups of individuals.
Lifeworks accepts referrals for its employment programs from a variety of sources, including:
- The Department of Development Services (DDS).
- The Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission (MRC).
- Individuals being served, their families or other agencies/guardians who may represent the individual.
Please ask your DDS or MRC Case Manager, the school transition team or other school advisor. They will help you arrange a meeting with us at a mutually convenient day and time.
Or, you may call Mary Ellen Cameron, Norwood, MA at 781-769-3298 x206 or Mariano Gonzalez, Boston, MA at 617-323-7400 x224.
- After a tour of one of our Fulfillment and Training Centers and a presentation of our services, we discuss options with you, your loved one and anyone else involved in the decision making process.
- If everyone decides to move forward, your loved one is invited to spend two weeks with us to explore his/her best talents, interests and skills.
- He/she will join one or more of our mobile crews at a job site in the community, as well as work in our own Training Centers.
- They will be accompanied by a professional job coach and encouraged to test their abilities at a variety of tasks, for example:
- Collating
- Packaging
- "Kitting" and assembly
- Custodial work
- Sorting, stamping and sealing
- Costs are based on the level and types of supports required.
- Funding sources pay for the costs of each approved program.
- Most of our funding comes from the Department of Developmental Services (DDS).
- We also receive funding from the Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission, (MRC), for job development and employment support services.
- While DDS and MRC are our primary funding sources, we also receive support from the Montachusett Regional Transit Authority and the Public Partnership L.L.C.
- Some individuals purchase services through "private pay" arrangements.
Lifeworks welcomes your questions regarding referral procedures, programs and services.
We'll be glad to arrange a tour of our Programs before any commitments or decisions are made.
Please contact Chris Page, Vice President, at 781-762-4001, extension ____ or at : cpage@lifeworksma.org.