In Brief:
- People with disabilities are employed at a lower rate than people without, but federally funded pre-employment transition services aim to help. They support high school students who have some form of emotional, cognitive, physical or other disability in preparing for a job or postsecondary education.
- Pre-ETS can help students pursue careers, learn skills for living independently as an adult and gain their first work experience.
- These programs face some challenges, including struggles to ensure parents know such a resource exists. Some providers also worry about the future of funding under the Trump administration.
When Quintin Saunders was a high school senior, he worried about the future. He struggled with ADHD, anxiety and clinical depression and hadn’t been in a good mindset about school. Some days he simply didn’t go. “My thought was, if it’s not getting me a job right now, it’s useless,” he recalls. With graduation coming up fast, he was feeling “pretty lost in what to do as an adult.” He wanted to work in an auto shop and wasn’t sure how to get there.
Then his school hosted a seminar about something that could help.
He joined a pre-employment transition services (Pre-ETS) program from TURN Community Services in Utah. There, he met weekly with an employment services specialist who talked with him about his career goals, discussed his plans for the future and talked about how to manage his mental health conditions so they wouldn’t affect his work.
Pre-ETS programs are designed to help young people with disabilities prepare to move from high school to career or postsecondary education. They’re targeted at 14- to 21-year-old students with some form of documented disability, whether it’s emotional, cognitive or physical. The programs aim to help them consider the kinds of careers they’d like to have, get initial work experience and prepare for their next steps.
The specialist Saunders worked with helped him land a 45-day, work-based learning experience in an independent auto body shop. Working as an assistant, he detailed cars, organized tools and helped in other areas.
Now 19, Saunders has enrolled in an automotive mechanics program and knows the kind of vehicle dealerships he wants to work for, the kind of positions he’d want to have, and can see the path to get there. “I don't think I could have finished out high school and had a job unless I was in the Pre-ETS program,” he says. But now, “[I know] how to become a mechanic and how to get to being a mechanic.”
There’s a clear need for such support: In 2024, only about 47 percent of young adults (ages 20 to 24) who had disabilities had or were seeking jobs, compared to 73 percent without disabilities. Last year, only about 38 percent of working-age people with disabilities were employed, compared to 74 percent of working-age people without disabilities, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The 2014 Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act took aim at this disparity. It required state vocational rehabilitation agencies to use at least 15 percent of their federal funds to provide Pre-ETS to people who are or might be eligible for vocational rehabilitation services, such as having individualized education plans (IEPs) or 504 plans. (504 plans are designed for students with disabilities who require accommodations, but who, unlike children with IEPs, don’t require specialized instruction.) Pre-ETS programs can be run either by state agencies or approved vendors.
The Services Students Need
Students are supposed to receive five kinds of services: job exploration counseling; work-based learning experiences; counseling about “opportunities for enrollment in comprehensive transition or postsecondary educational programs at institutions of higher education;” self-advocacy; and “workplace readiness training to develop social skills and independent living.”
Not all participants get all these services. One study found that participants on average received fewer than three of the five types of services nationally from 2017-2020, with participants in Hawaii tending to get the most types of help and those in North Carolina receiving the fewest. Another study found that program providers aren’t always given clear guidelines or specific strategies for conducting the programs, leading to situations where the “quality, frequency and scope” of Pre-ETS can vary by state or school district.
Even where services exist, it can be hard to raise awareness about them. TURN in Utah, for example, wants to enroll more students but struggles to let parents know they’re available, says Selena Harris, the group’s director of employment services. Reporting from New Jersey similarly found that many parents — and even some school officials — don’t know about Pre-ETS.
But when programs are utilized and go well, they can make a big difference.
Potential Program Benefits
TURN Community Services has participants meet one-on-one with a specialist at least weekly. Sessions might include practice answering and asking questions in job interviews, making a resume and finding a work-based learning experience. Ideally, work goals will align with their passions and skills, but gaining experience even in a different field is helpful.
“We need to find them somewhere that they can learn all of those mistakes that everybody makes, and [where] they can concentrate on how to be a good employee, so they don't make those mistakes in a job that they love,” Harris says. Any job may offer a chance to practice “just showing up to work on time, being a team player, listening to their supervisor.”
Before participants begin working, they typically do informational interviews with various local employers. That gives them a chance to check out different environments. Some they might like, others might be too bright, noisy or chaotic, Harris says.
When they start the work experience, their specialist stays onsite with them for the first day or so, to observe. Specialists ensure that participants understand the job responsibilities and, if necessary, help advise them on workforce etiquette. Employers agree to provide weekly written feedback on the participants’ performance, and TURN specialists go over these documents with the youth.
Overcoming Anxiety
For participants like 17-year-old Jenny, who started with TURN last winter, the program helps her both consider how to get a job and also strategies to work smoothly while there. (Jenny’s name has been changed for privacy reasons.)
Jenny hopes to become a nurse, and, in the meantime, find work that’ll help her save up for nursing school. When her school counselor told her about TURN, she jumped at it. “I was like, ‘It's a program that helps me get a job — let’s do it,’” Jenny says.
Her specialist is working with her to overcome her social anxiety and learn to deal with stress. The specialist is prompting her to reach out and call a food bank to set up a time to volunteer and encouraging her to talk to more people. “When you’re at work, you’re going to have to socialize,” Jenny says. Her specialist is also reminding her to keep calm and ask coworkers to talk to her differently when their tone stresses her out.
Asked about what she’d change about the program, Jenny says: “Absolutely nothing. They do a really good job … It’s like they actually want to help you get a job — they’re not doing it just to get the money.”
All Kinds of Support
Kids sometimes come into the program without knowing they have a disability. For those who struggled in school, it’s a huge difference to realize why they struggled, learn how to adapt for the way their brain works, and then to have a successful work experience and plan for the future, Harris says.
TURN’s Pre-ETS programming goes beyond direct work support. It also helps participants with other areas key to living independently, such as teaching participants to do their own laundry, helping them open bank accounts, apply for drivers' licenses or other forms of ID, and practice navigating public transportation.
The program also can help participants find mental health professionals.
Although the Trump administration is pushing big changes in education policy, it’s not yet clear this will affect Pre-ETS programs. “Currently we have not heard of any changes to Pre-ETS services due to changes in federal policy,” an Illinois Department of Human Services spokesperson says in an email.
But there have been federal cuts in related areas. The Department of Government Efficiency cut funding to Charting My Path, a fledgling program intended to study which kinds of transition services and additional supports best help students with disabilities prepare for college or careers. “The funding is worrisome right now,” Harris says.
She argues that Pre-ETS should appeal from a government efficiency standpoint. It’s the kind of program that keeps people from needing government support over the long term, instead setting them up to earn money and pay taxes.
