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Access to Achievement aims to serve students with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) at North Carolina’s 58 community colleges with the resources and awareness of today.
The story starts, however, in 1985, with North Carolina’s Persons with Disabilities Protection Act, which reads, “(To) ensure equality of opportunity, to promote independent living, self‑determination, and economic self‑sufficiency, and to encourage and enable all persons with disabilities to participate fully to the maximum extent of their abilities in the social and economic life of the State, to engage in remunerative employment, to use available public accommodations and public services, and to otherwise pursue their rights and privileges as inhabitants of this State.”
Fast forward to 2019, and the North Carolina Community College System (NCCCS) commissioned a report to assess the opportunities available to individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities and the ways NCCCS can help them secure sustainable employment after graduation. As asked in the report, “What should the NCCCS do to expand the employment opportunities of adults with IDD securing sustainable employment with NC employers across the state?”
The report found that better coordination was needed between the system, state, and local agencies that serve individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. They found that the NCCCS had room to provide better support and find best practices for job and skill development; resources to plan, develop, and network with employers; and real work experiences opposed to simulations.
It was recommended in the report to create a lead position at the system office to begin facilitating systematic processes to increase the integration of students with IDD within college campuses and across departments. This position would convene all 58 community colleges to establish a unified vision and framework for serving individuals with IDD.
In response to the report, a pilot program was launched in 2022 with $500,000 allocated by the General Assembly. For the pilot, Catawba Valley and Brunswick community colleges were tasked with providing career pathway opportunities and resources for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
After a successful first year, the pilot was expanded. In 2023, legislators allocated nearly $4 million to offer the pilot at 15 community colleges beginning in the fall of 2024. Funds were allocated to hire achievement counselors at the community colleges and for classroom materials, supplementary programming, a transportation study to determine barriers, and a two-year statewide marketing campaign.
The legislation mandates that colleges do the following:
- Establish best practices for providing vocational training for individuals with IDD,
- Provide financial benefits and counseling,
- Develop strategies on integrating assistive technology,
- Maximize access, with support, to credential and degree programs, including micro-credentials that are established by the State Board of Community Colleges,
- Identify methods to increase orientation and integration of individuals with IDD into the college community to the greatest extent possible.
- Determine a needs assessment, marketing, and evaluation to serve a broad array of individuals with developmental and other similar disabilities or learning challenges to assure adequate demand for new or existing programs.
Life on campus
The counselors on the college campuses are either housed in student services, workforce development, or basic skills departments. Their official titles are Access to Achievement Coordinators. According to Nancye Gaj, state director of Access to Achievement and NCCCS director of career pathways of IDD, they are tasked with recruiting and advertising their services to students and families in schools, on college campuses, and in the community.
Support looks different for every student. It is not required for a student to disclose any disability for a student to work with the coordinators. Therefore, they work with a wide range of students; some that may need to be placed in specialized programs, and some who may need a couple of accommodations to succeed in standard curriculum courses. Most of the 300 students the program touches are the latter, Gaj said.
The main tool coordinators have is person-centered planning. This is when the coordinator meets with the student and potentially any guardians, case workers, or anyone else involved in the student’s success. They outline what the student’s goals are, curriculum and non-curriculum pathways they can take, and resources available on campus to make that happen.
“So rather than searching all over the college, I’m sort of an all-in-one type of person,” said Tammy Buff, Access to Achievement Coordinator at Catawba Valley Community College. “I check their grades, I see what they need help, perhaps they need a tutor, they need support, things like that. I arrange that for them, so I am their support behind the scenes.”
Mackenzie is a high school student who takes courses at Brunswick Community College by way of the Career and College Promise Program. She said that she has had a good adjustment to the college environment due to how easy it is to get in touch with her instructors and the Access to Achievement Coordinator, Jennifer Cotten.
“It made me feel a lot more comfortable, because coming into the college, I didn’t know if my accommodations would be able to follow through with me, but being able to sit in the meeting and talk about my goals and how they could help fluctuate and fit my accommodations into my studies, it really helped lower my anxiety levels about coming here,” Mackenzie said.
Mackenzie hopes to get the credentials she needs to take over her uncle’s barbershop business and offer more cosmetology options.
Bianca Vaught is another student working with Cotten. She is working toward becoming a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA).
“I plan to climb the great ladder, doctoring and nursing. I plan to stay in school for the entirety of my life, as long as God allows me. I do not want to stop school. I love school,” Vaught said.
Vaught said Cotten has had an impact on her life.
“She came in to essentially let me know that I can call her anytime I need to. She has really been a great statue in my life, too, as well, ” the student said.
Impact
Chad Cumber leads Brunswick Community College’s inter-agency program (BIP). They offer support for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities by way of facilitating the “students’ holistic development, fostering independence and active community participation,” their website states.
BIP provides adult basic education, supported employment, job coaching, and day support. For instance, many BIP students are employed at the college on landscaping crews that work in the community. Through support given by Access to Achievement, students can now earn a 3M safety training certificate.
BIP students were served in the initial pilot of Access to Achievement before the program realized they needed to expand their base. Cumber said that since the pilot, their program is showcased more often and is not “off in the corner.”
Vickie Vinson, associate director of Access to Achievement and NCCCS associate director of IDD training program, said the program has helped build positive relationships with the local public school districts.
“Something that they’re all doing very well is building those relationships with the public schools to make sure that the students who can benefit from Access to Achievement coming out of high school know that there’s someone there, and so that helps with the transition for those students,” Vinson said.
Gaj said they would like to see the program spread more throughout the state.
“We need to be flexible to the times we are living in,” Gaj said. “I just hope that we will do new things with new students – because it’s a new day.”
Editor’s Note: Jennifer Cotten is now the Access to Achievement coordinator at James Sprunt Community College. To learn more about the program at BCC, contact their new coordinator, Lashonn Freeman.
