In his June 7 column, Bob Wilson briefly described Washington State’s new “Vocational Recovery” project. In this model, VR’s are getting involved in cases of workers with experiencing work disruption

I have followed the COHE program since its inception in the early 2000’s. In the last few years, I have made two week-long trips to Washington State to study its current operations and learn its histo

You can find them at: https://www.dol.gov/odep/topics/SAW-RTW/news-events.htm The answers to questions that they were not able to answer on the spot have still not been released. Cordially, Jennifer C

The Secretaries’ Innovation Group had a conference yesterday with representatives from the state departments of workforce development and human services from roughly 20 states in the room. During thei

See below. Make sure to be on the call and ask your questions! (Or listen as others ask them for you!) Cordially, Jennifer Christian, MD, MPH Moderator – RETAINers e-group for anyone interested in pla

See below. ODEP has now provided thoroughly considered responses to some questions that were posed but not definitively answered during the first teleconference. The questions concern: Whether VR and

The Department of Industrial Accidents (workers’ comp for MA) cannot serve as the lead agency in this grant because DIA does not have an internal infrastructure/personnel to write and manage federal g

In listening to the medical society representative on a RETAIN planning group today, I remembered how important it will be for the COHE-equivalent organizations set up by each RETAIN project to develo

This copy just opened fine for me just now. Sorry for any inconvenience if it didn’t open for you earlier. Jennifer On Wednesday, June 20, 2018, 2:20:55 PM EDT, Julie Ording <jording@...> wrote: I kee

What a DELIGHT to hear that some of you are now starting to move into the program design and proposal writing phase! Here are some musings and some personal advice that I hope will help you think abou

Found a potentially useful article that you may find helpful in designing your RETAIN project / writing your proposal. It concerns identifying cases at risk for eventual entry onto SSDI in short-term

Occupational medicine physicians and other healthcare professionals with expertise in the SAW/RTW process are now joining our RETAINers list-serv. And we now have hashtags for 17 states. One way to co

A state asked for my advice about who the RTW coordinators should work for and what kind of professional backgrounds they should have. Here are my observations and professional opinions on the matter.

My two colleagues and I have briefly discussed the idea and decided to recommend AGAINST the 8 states in Phase I of RETAIN trying to share an IT system for capturing data and supporting project workfl

One state asked me to describe the role of the state workforce agency, so I started imagining it. This is what I see: (I did not re-review the RFP/FOA before writing this, and you DEFINITELY should do

To those of you who wrote me worried notes: I apologize for causing confusion/misunderstanding. I am NOT recommending we “medicalize” disability. I AM pointing out the reality that in order to PERSUAD

Dear Fellow RETAIN Participants: I am an occupational medicine physician who is excited about the potential impact the RETAIN endeavor can have. So, I am eager to partner with any entity that shares m

I’ve pasted the diagram right into this email (see below) just in case you don’t receive attachments. If you would like a copy of this Powerpoint diagram, send me a note. I forgot to say that the COHE