Choosing Work: Activating People with Disabilities to Participate In the Ticket to Work Program Through Integrated Telephonic and Digital Outreach

Background:  According to a 2000 World Health Organization report, employment provides psychological experiences that promote mental well-being including structure, social contact, purpose, identity, and activity. These benefits, along with financial self-sufficiency, make access to beneficial work particularly of value to people with disabilities. Social Security’s Ticket to Work program provides access to employment supports services and counseling to approximately 12 million Americans on SSI and/or SSDI benefits who wish to prepare for, seek, and sustain employment that can lead to financial independence. These services are provided by state Vocational Rehabilitation agencies and private entities that contract with Social Security, known as Employment Networks.

Program background:  In September 2010 the Social Security Administration awarded Booz Allen Hamilton a support contract for the Ticket to Work Program for beneficiary outreach tasks, including strategic communications, social media, call center support, and web management. Our team quickly stood up/enhanced the Ticket to Work Helpline, the Choose Work website, a monthly webinar series, and a social media program.

Evaluation Methods and Results:  In 2011 and 2012, Social Security made several changes to how beneficiaries learn about the program, including the discontinuation of paper Ticket mailings and the discontinuation of in-person Work Incentives Seminar Events. This presented a challenge to our team: how do you effectively communicate a program to a diverse population with a variety of communication preferences without tangible and high-touch resources such as mailings and in-person events? 

Conclusions: This presentation will describe a cohesive outreach strategy that uses integrated telephonic and digital technologies and techniques to reach beneficiaries and activate them to take action in exploring and participating in the program. 

Implications for research and/or practice:  We will discuss:

• How we identified beneficiaries most likely to be successful with the program via an algorithmic determination and targeted them for receiving Integrated Voice Recognition (IVR) calls that encouraged them to call the Ticket to Work Helpline to get started with the program
• How we integrated IVR with email capture on our website to lay the groundwork for targeted email outreach
• How we provided more opportunities for engagement with beneficiaries through our monthly webinars with a Facebook Question and Answer session immediately following and through a “Viewing Party” toolkit to community partners to bridge the virtual and in-person
• How we used Twitter as a platform to discuss disability employment for special populations via the first ever disability employment Twitter chat
• How we overcame challenges related to accessibility to provide cutting edge solutions while still providing the right information to all