The PEACE initiative will offer community employment opportunities in the Richmond area to young people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. (Photo via Getty Images)
A five-year, $1.25 million federal grant will benefit Project PEACE, a program to support young job-seekers with intellectual and developmental disabilities in Richmond and Colonial Heights. PEACE is an acronym that stands for promoting employment after high school through community expertise. It is led by researchers with the School of Education at Virginia Commonwealth University.
The program helps these young people gain skills and experience and is also “about communities collectively developing capacities and solutions so that they’re better prepared to support and ultimately benefit from capable, reliable and often essential workers with [intellectual or developmental disabilities],” according to Seb Prohn, the project’s principal investigator and an evaluation analyst with Partnership for People With Disabilities at VCU. Project PEACE is expected to provide community employment experiences for 24 to 35 people with intellectual or developmental disabilities, according to a press release.
“Project PEACE is not another initiative where external experts tell communities how to fix problems,” Prohn says. “Stakeholders know so much more about the ins and outs of how their communities function, including significant strengths, pressures and barriers. The collective wisdom of communities — people with disabilities, service providers, business owners, educators and others — can lead to changes unattainable by any one researcher with any set of ideas, and I’m proud that this project acknowledges that and places it front and center.”
