Customer and Community Field Services (BCCFS) 2024

Bureau of Customer & Community Field Services (BCCFS) The Bureau of Customer and Community Field Services (BCCFS) oversee all Vocational Rehabilitation programs and services. The Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) program assists individuals with disabilities in preparing for, obtaining, advancing in, and maintaining quality competitive employment. Our goal is to help our customers find quality employment that pays a living wage and offers a chance for advancement. Services include evaluation, guidance and counseling, education, training, physical and mental restoration, assistive devices, job development, job placement, and post-employment services. The Bureau also provides a wide range of services to individuals with the most significant disabilities to enable them to remain in their homes and live as independently as possible.

FY24 Highlights

  • Successfully placed 4,228 customers in competitive, integrated employment.
  • Served 40,376 Vocational Rehabilitation customers.
  • Filled 108 field staff vacancies.
  • DRS field office VR staff are actively going into the community to meet with customers, visit employers, work with CRPs, and attend IEPs for youth in area high schools.
  • Partnered with the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE), facilitated by the National Technical Assistance Center on Transition at University of North Carolina- Charlotte, to finalize an interagency agreement designed to strengthen partnerships between the two agencies and to clearly define roles and responsibilities of each partner in the provision of transition services to youth with disabilities throughout the state.
  • Circulated The School-to-Work Transition Guide, developed in 2023 in collaboration with the Illinois Center for Transition to Work at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, Illinois State Board of Education and local education agencies. The guide provides a roadmap for customers, parents/guardians, and others providing transition services outlining resources, processes, and roles and responsibilities.
  • DRS field staff provided thousands of individuals working in sheltered workshops earning a subminimum wage, with career counseling and guidance related to obtaining competitive integrated employment through DRS Vocational Rehabilitation services.
  • Continued the $14M Subminimum Wage to Competitive Integrated Employment Demonstration (SWTCIE Illinois) Project funded by U.S. Department of Education - Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA). The pilot year of the project engaged more than 75 customers transitioning from or considering subminimum wage employment and successfully transitioned 34 individuals (48%) to competitive integrated employment.

BCCFS Vision for 2025

  •  Increase timeliness of case progression.
  • Increase referrals to IDHS-DRS programs, in part, through improvements to our referral process.
  • Reduce the number of referrals closed prematurely.
  • Provide excellent customer service.
  • Increase access to services including face-to-face home and community-based appointments, virtual, and in-office appointments.
  • Work with other division bureaus to develop and implement a social media, digital advertising outreach plan.
  • Increase engagement with Local Workforce Investment Boards, Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act partners, and the DRS presence and involvement in local OneStop service provision.
  • Continue to remove barriers for all customers through the elimination of SSN requirements at time of referral.
  • Continue engagement of Williams and Colbert Consent Decree prime mental health agencies.
  • Fully execute the MOU with Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) outreaching to more students with disabilities throughout the state of Illinois.
  • Expand the Vocational Rehabilitation program by striving to contact up to 100,000 youth with disabilities to share information on DRS services and encourage program enrollment.