Supported Employment, Group Day Support, and Community Engagement Services

The City of Norfolk (the “City”) is seeking qualified vendors to provide Supported Employment, Group Day Support, and Community Engagement Services for individuals with developmental disabilities. Offerors may submit proposals for one or more of these three services: Supported Employment Services, Group Day Services and Community Engagement Services.

The City through its Norfolk Community Services Board (“NCSB”) provides publicly funded services to individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. NCSB connects clients receiving services for intellectual and developmental disabilities with providers for Supported Employment, Group Day Support, and Community Engagement.

Supported Employment Services are provided to individuals who need intensive ongoing support to obtain and maintain a job in competitive, customized employment, or self-employment (including home-based self-employment), for which an individual is compensated at or above the minimum wage, but not less than the customary wage and level of benefits paid by the employer for the same or similar work performed by individuals without disabilities.

Individual Supported Employment is support usually provided one-on-one by a job coach in an integrated employment or self-employment situation. The outcome of this service is sustained paid employment at or above minimum wage in an integrated setting in the general workforce, in a job that meets the personal and career goals of the individual.

Group Supported Employment is defined as continuous support provided by staff in regular business, industry, and community settings to groups of two to eight people with disabilities and involves interactions with the public and with co-workers without disabilities. Examples include mobile crews and other business-based workgroups employing small groups of workers with disabilities in the community. Group Supported Employment must be provided in a manner that promotes integration into the workplace and interaction between people with and without disabilities in those workplaces.

Group Day Services include skill building or support for the acquisition, retention, or improvement of self-help, socialization, community integration, employability, and adaptive skills. They provide opportunities for peer interactions, community integration, and enhancement of social networks. Support may be provided to ensure an individual’s health and safety. Skill building is a required component of this service unless the individual has a documented degenerative condition, in which case day support may focus on maintaining skills and functioning and preventing or slowing regression rather than acquiring new skills or improving existing skills.

Community Engagement Services support and foster an individual’s abilities to acquire, retain, or improve skills necessary to build positive social behavior, interpersonal competence, greater independence, employability, and personal choices necessary to access typical activities and functions of community life such as those chosen by the general population. These may include participating in community education or training and volunteer activities. Community Engagement provides a wide variety of opportunities to facilitate and build relationships and natural supports in the community, while utilizing the community as0 a learning environment. These activities are conducted at naturally occurring times and in a variety of natural settings in which the individual actively interacts with persons without disabilities (other than those paid to support the individual). The activities enhance the individual's involvement with the community by developing non-verbal communication methods and understanding non-verbal cues from others, thereby facilitating the development of relationships and natural supports while increasing autonomy and independence.