A University of Oklahoma College of Continuing Education program was awarded a $1.2 million grant for a statewide initiative aimed toward people with disabilities.

The National Center on Disability Education and Training received the grant because of the Ticket to Work and Work Incentive Improvement Act passed in Congress in 1999. This program will allow people with disabilities to work without losing Social Security benefits.

The Center for Public Management and Educational Development in the College of Continuing Education was then awarded the five-year grant.

The grant applies mainly to people with disabilities who are on Supplemental Security Income or Social Security Income. This includes working people from ages 16 to 64.

Mary Katherine Long, programdevelopment specialist with the Center for Public Management in the College of Continuing Education, was in charge of the proposal for the grant.

Long said some beneficiaries will be able to earn around $1,100 a month before their benefits will be cut off. Their medical coverage will remain protected for several years, she said.

All 50 states had the opportunity to receive the grant.

"I feel OU received the grant because we put forth a very strong proposal," Long said. "We were able to prove that we had the capacity to have state wide coverage and we were able to develop a plan that would cover that."

OU will be working with several non-profit agencies including the Oklahoma Chapter of National Alliance for the Mentally Ill.

Long said their main goal is to make it possible for individuals with disabilities to be informed about the Ticket to Work and Work Incentive Improvement Act, and allow them the opportunity to take advantage of it.

"It is really exciting on a lot of levels because the laws have really changed to help improve the lives of people with disabilities," Long said. "It is a way for different organizations to collaborate and make people with disabilities aware of the options available to them."

Rusty Olson, spokesperson for the College of Continuing Education, said the program will help people with disabilities gradually move into work.

"A lot of times, people with disabilities do not work in fear that they will lose their social security benefits," Olson said. "This program will allow them to work, and they may be therapeutic for them."

Long said the program will also bring more money into the Social Security system because the people with disabilities will now be paying taxes.

"I think grants or programs, especially ones that come from the taxpayers, are very important for people with disabilities," said Timothy Selsor, president of the Association for Disabled Students. "This allows them to get jobs, and in the long run they will become tax payers themselves, instead of living off of tax payers money."

Selsor was a quarterback his freshman year in high school who was already being scouted by colleges. After an accident his sophomore year, he became disabled.

Selsor said he went through a career service program to find a job Tuesday, and as he interviewed with the agency his major concern was whether his social security would be cut off if he received the job.

"Fear keeps people with disabilities from getting jobs," Selsor said. "With a program like this, they do not need to worry how much money they are allowed to make before their social security will be cut off."

Long said the organizations are in the process of training through the Social Security Administration, and services will become available to people with disabilities in the early part of March.


For more information about the Oklahoma College of Continuing Education visit www.occe.ou.edu.
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