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APSE is a grass-roots organization whose mission is helping individuals with disabilities find supported employment within their communities. Although its name has had various changes throughout the years to reflect the ideas of the times, its mission has remained steady and unchanged. APSE began as an idea in Richmond, VA in the 1980’s by a few select individuals with a belief that they could make a difference. It has since grown into a national organization that not only focuses on broad legislation, but with a "connect" on a local level through state chapters, regional trainings, and the involvement of their members and the individuals that they support.

History
In 1984 a new format for helping individuals with disabilities find employment was introduced. This program was called "supported employment". Supported employment was initiated through the Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1986 specifically to assist persons with the most significant disabilities to successfully achieve and retain competitive employment. This new program was designed to provide assistance such as job coaches, job development, job retention, transportation, assistive technology, specialized job training, and individually tailored supervision. Supported Employment often refers to both the development of employment opportunities and on-going support for those individuals to maintain employment per supported employment Wikipedia.

These conferences would be hosted by VCU (Virginia Commonwealth University). APSE was formed in the winter of 1988 in Richmond, VA. All of the founding members wanted to make sure that as APSE moved forward, that its membership was to include a wide array of people. They hoped that it would include front line workers such as coaches, managers, professors, and individuals with disabilities and their families. APSE originally stood for Association for Persons in Supported Employment.

As APSE was still getting off of the ground, they went ahead and formed a board in 1989 and their meetings continued to be held at the Supported Employment Symposiums that were sponsored by the RRTC on Supported Employment at VCU or the TASH conferences.

To help spread the word about their newly formed organization, they utilized the connections that they had formed through these conferences and symposiums.

For the first few years the only way to keep APSE operational was through applying for and receiving grants through various sources. One of these grants was the WIN grant. WIN stands for Work Incentive Network. This grant was very important for the future growth of APSE. The whole purpose of this grant was to educate various individuals on how to use these incentives. As APSE utilized this grant, this allowed them to spread the word through the country at the same time about APSE.

Another grant that APSE was able to utilize to help them grow was the “Partnership for Advancement of Supported Employment Services” project. This was funded by the Virginia DD council. This projects focus was to help build relationships between service agencies and funding agencies in the state of Virginia. This helped APSE build support within Virginia.

These grants helped keep APSE stabilized while they grew. After two years of working on getting the word out and stabilizing, APSE was ready to expand. Although there were already over 1000 members representing all 50 states, it still was not a known commodity. This expansion was important to the longevity of APSE and was focused in two areas. The first area was the formation of state chapters. The second area was the very first national conference in Denver, Colorado in 1990. 700 people would show up for this first conference. Around this time, APSE also changed its name to APSE: The Network on Employment.

One of the first state chapters was formed in New Hampshire in 1991. Other state chapters forming during this time period would include: Ohio, Virginia, Massachusetts, and Colorado.

One of the major moments at this time was the passing of the ADA that was signed into law by President Bush on July 26, 1990. The ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in employment, transportation, public accommodation, communications, and governmental activities.

During this time APSE’s focus was to continue to develop their state chapters and to continue the growth of the organization as a whole. It was also during this time that the Supported Employment model started to become stagnant. Its growth trajectory was not as high as it had been when it was first introduced. To try and address this, David Mank wrote a paper called The Underachievement of Supported Employment: A Call for Reinvestment. As stated in the paper, David Mank’s goal was to “address the status of supported employment, explore the perception of its underachievement, and provide recommendations for a new future”. Another paper, Toured Integrated Employment for All: APSE position on segregated services for people with disabilities also discussed this topic. Neither of these papers was highly received by the industry. But as down as supported employment was, it would continue as the program of record for several more years. In the meantime, the APSE board was trying to pull together all of the competencies on supported employment.

Starting in late 2002 to early 2003, APSE began a transition in leadership. It was also during this time that a new look on employment began to surface. This new model was referred to as “Customized Employment”. Customized employment is “a flexible process designed to personalize the employment relationship between a job candidate and an employer in a way that meets the needs of both” as stated by the US department of Labor. Customized Employment focused on certain aspects of employment such as task reassignment, job carving, and job sharing. The goal of APSE at this time was actually multi-faceted. They wanted to keep themselves stable, but growing, and they also wanted to keep the momentum growing in the public policy section. In order to do this, they started a more sophisticated marketing and promotion initiative. To handle this program they brought on Neil Ramano. They also started to expand their online presence by working with VCU. This was a turbulent time for employment as the transition between supported and customized was taking place. To ensure a smooth transition, APSE who favored the supported employment model reached out to those who favored customized employment. As this was happening, APSE moved from Richmond, VA to Washington D.C. During 2008 APSE shortened its name to just APSE.

Although it had only been since 2002 since Customized Employment had been introduced, it did not seem to take hold as well as Supported Employment. Again there was a new employment model introduced into the arena; this was Employment First. “Under the Employment First approach, community-based, integrated employment is the first option for employment services for youth and adults with significant disabilities”. This new model was introduced and developed in Washington State and was quickly adopted in several states such as in Minnesota.

APSE has since become the voice for Employment First. This has since been reflected with a fourth name change to APSE: Association of People Supporting Employment First. The focus now for APSE was to connect legislators with the Employment First initiative and let it be known that APSE was the go to place for this. Since its development there are now twenty-four states with Employment First initiatives due to the hard work of the APSE organization and members.

In October of 2010 APSE rolled out a new program for individuals working within the field of employment. What was introduced was the “Certified Employment Support Professional” exam or CESP for short. This exam had been in the works for up to fifteen years. APSE had been looking to provide a nationwide certification exam for those individuals working in the field to help promote what they do. APSE searched for funding to help offset the cost of the exam and they were able to do so through Medicaid Infrastructure Grants. Four states, (Indiana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Arkansas) gave money to this grant. Once this was in place and it was decided that this exam would be feasible, it took up to one year of collecting information and writing the test questions for the exam. To date, the CESP exam has been administered numerous times, throughout several states, with thousands of individuals taking and passing it. Like all national exams it is a living functional entity that is constantly updated to reflect the knowledge of those individuals working in the field.

State Chapters
State chapters were designed to promote APSE at the local level. It is here that APSE works one on one with people who currently work within the field of employment to garner their involvement within APSE. It is also within the state chapters, as it is on the national level, that individuals with disabilities can have a voice. The positions of a state chapter are filled by volunteers. These volunteers are related to the employment field in some way. They could work for a service provider; they could be a VR counselor, a state legislator, or a person with a disability or a family member of someone with a disability. The state chapters are unique from the national APSE, as they are also unique from one another. The issues that each state faces in addressing the needs of those they serve are not the same from state to state or on a national level. While the national organization of APSE works to help those it serves through the influences in federal policies, it is at the state chapter or local level that one can truly see the differences that APSE has made in people’s lives. The state chapters connect everyone across their state so ideas can be shared and a common goal can be worked towards. If someone can see a success held by someone within their state or a nearby community, they can relate to that easier than someone across the country. As one state chapter member stated “Almost half of our membership consists of people who receive services. We listen and value member’s opinions. The most powerful message is each person’s story of success at their jobs. How they found the job and how they grow in their job. This can inspire other job seekers, as well as families and community members.”