Vocational Rehabilitation and Blind Services
Vision
Montana values people with disabilities in our workforce and our communities.
Mission
Montana Vocational Rehabilitation and Blind Services promotes opportunities for Montanans with disabilities to have rewarding careers and achieve maximum personal potential.
Core Values
- We value informed choice; our staff guide, and the people we serve decide.
- We presume all people with disabilities, including those with the most significant disabilities, can work in competitive integrated settings with advancement opportunities.
- We believe work provides a sense of purpose.
- Our services promote the civil rights of each participant.
- We respect and value diversity.
- We value our ethical foundations of autonomy, beneficence, fidelity, justice, non-maleficence, and veracity.
- We promote healthy interdependence, independent living, and community integration.
- Collaborating with partners makes us stronger and more effective.
- We continually innovate and provide state of the art services
Customers
Individuals with disabilities seeking employment and their employers comprise our two primary customers. However, all society benefits when its citizens with disabilities are employed in their communities and earning livable wages.
Structure
Vocational Rehabilitation and Blind Services combines the general and the blind vocational rehabilitation programs in a single unit. Montana state law allows the combined approach, and it also requires separate services for blind and visually impaired clients. Follow the link to Blind and Low Vision Services on this page to find out more about that part of our program. Vocational Rehabilitation and Blind Services is part of the Disability Employment and Transitions Division of the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services. The Acting Administrator of Vocational Rehabilitation and Blind Services as well as Disability Employment and Transitions is Chanda Hermanson-Dudley. Chanda may be reached via the contact links below.
Staff Members
Our Vocational Rehabilitation Counselors and Instructors must hold a master’s degree and the ability to sit for certification in order to be qualified for their jobs. These professionals are supported by other professionals including administrative support, specialists, program managers, supervisors, and trainees. All engage continuous improvement and personal development to hone their skills to a keen leading edge.
Our Central Office administrative staff is located in Helena.
Vocational Rehabilitation
111 North Last Chance Gulch, Suite 2B
PO Box 4210
Helena, MT 59604-4210
1 (877) 296-1197 (toll-free consumer line)
(406) 444-1710 (voice/TTY)
(406) 444-3632 (fax)
Email: vrinfo@mt.gov
If you wish to contact us, please email us or contact your local office.
Vocational Rehabilitation and Blind Services presents the following video to introduce our services. The four links below play different versions of the same video. Choose the standard link to play the video without reasonable accommodations. If you require open captioning, sign language interpreting, or audio description, click on the corresponding link to play the video with reasonable accommodations.
The WIOA sets a whole new course for vocational rehabilitation, independent living, and other disability services. The changes are so significant that Montana and the rest of the nation will split its views of these public programs in two parts: Before WIOA and after WIOA. In other words, our WIOA services are not those your parents or grandparents knew. According to Janet LaBreck, Commissioner of the Rehabilitation Services Administration of the US Department of Education, WIOA changes 100 items in WIOA’s Title IV, the part of the WIOA formerly known as the Rehabilitation Act. That’s a lot by any measure. To put a finer point on it, many of those changes require sweeping departures from past practices. So, in the spirit of the WIOA, welcome to the new Vocational Rehabilitation and Blind Services. We will serve Montana differently than we have in the past. WIOA reinvigorates what we do well and raises the bar for service. Montanans with disabilities, supported by the innovations and opportunities of the services we provide, live the lives they choose, just like any Montanan expects and demands. Here is to a new day in services for people with disabilities in our nation and state!
To meet WIOA, Vocational Rehabilitation and Blind Services will accomplish the following three changes:
- Emphasize services to youth with disabilities.
- Champion competitive integrated employment.
- Align VRBS with workforce development programs.
For more information about how the WIOA affects the public vocational rehabilitation program, check out the Workforce Innovation And Opportunity Act Overview.
For more information about how the WIOA affects the public independent living, assistive technology, and disability research programs; check out the Administration on Community Living’s page.
For more information about how the WIOA affects workforce development programs, check out The US Department of Labor’s page on employment and training .
The services described on this website are funded, in part, with federal funds awarded by the U.S. Department of Education under the Vocational Rehabilitation (VR), Supported Employment Services, and the Independent Living Services for Older Individuals Who are Blind (OIB) programs. For purposes of the VR program, the federal VR grant paid 78.7 percent of the total costs of the program. In federal fiscal year (FFY) 2024, the VR agency received $13,848,074 in federal VR funds. Funds appropriated by the State paid 21.3 percent of the total costs ($3,747,954) under the VR program. For purposes of the Supported Employment program, federal funds paid 95 percent of the total costs. In FFY 2024, the VR agency received $300,000 in federal Supported Employment funds. State appropriated funds paid 5 percent ($16,667) of the total costs under the Supported Employment program. For purposes of the OIB program, federal funds paid 90 percent of the total costs incurred under the program. In FFY 2024, the agency received $225,000 in federal grant funds for this program. Funds appropriated by the State paid 10 percent ($25,000) of the total costs incurred under the OIB program.