For the past five years, the Southeast Network of Community Employment Services (SENCES) has improved the employment outcomes of people with disabilities by increasing the knowledge and skills of employment personal in eight southeastern states through a distance learning academic certification program.

This program was supported by a five-year federal grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Education Rehabilitation Services Administration and directed through the College of Education's Department of Rehabilitation and Special Education. Job coaches, employment specialists, job developers and rehabilitation counselors employed by the 12 state vocational rehabilitation agencies in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee participated in SENCES.

The last group of students recently received their academic certificates in a celebration that was "bittersweet" for program director, Suzanne Tew-Washburn. "The one thing we were hearing last week was how there was really a need for this kind of professional development for rehabilitation employees. It makes you feel good because you know you were providing a needed and appreciated service, but it also makes you feel bad because our grant has come to an end," Tew-Washburn said.

During the program's five years of operation, about 130 students have graduated after completing a minimum of three courses, each with 30 on-campus class hours, a 30-hour field project and various other assignments via distance education. All of the students were full-time rehabilitation employees who were referred to Tew-Washburn by their state agencies, making them eligible for a fellowship — including tuition and a stipend.

"This academic certification program allowed them to learn new skills to help them do their jobs more effectively, therefore serving people with disabilities and their employers better," she said.

Dawn Browning, academic program assistant, developed an interactive Web site for SENCES.

"It is intended to be a comprehensive resource for those not only in the program, but others in the rehabilitation field as well," Browning said. "We have created an online directory of everyone who completed the program and what we call 'friends,' which includes master students. We are creating a field-project abstract library that will serve as a networking tool and provide the contact information for each of the people who did the projects."

The Web site also has a discussion forum that is available for AU students, program participants and others in the field that wish to discuss current issues as they arise in the field.

"A lot of other ideas have grown out of this, even as we said good-bye to our last group of students," Tew-Washburn said. "We will continue the Web site as a means for networking, and we are working on a newsletter for the entire rehabilitation program. It will probably be an e-newsletter, with representatives from each state helping in the development of those stories."

One of the greatest benefits of the program from Tew-Washburn's perspective was the fact that, while they typically served older students, there was a range of experience among participants that allowed them to learn from each other.

"They did form relationships with their 'classmates' from other regions and agencies," she said.  "We have three peer awards we present at the end of each certification program and I found it interesting that students mostly nominated peers from another agencies and region who they had come to respect during the course. I was just talking to one of the first graduates of the program who lives in Georgia. He is still in contact with a colleague he met during the course who lives in North Carolina, so students certainly made life-long connections."