Georgia Vocational Rehabilitation Agency (GVRA)

The Georgia Vocational Rehabilitation Agency (GVRA) can help you prepare for and find work. GVRA can help you get the training or other services that you need to return to work, enter a new line of work, keep working, or get a job for the first time. Services are carefully chosen to match your personal needs, and your GVRA counselor will work with you to decide which GVRA services are best for you.

To get services from GVRA, you must have a physical or mental disability that makes it difficult for you to find and keep a job. (If you qualify for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) based on your disability, you probably qualify for GVRA.) You must also want to work, and have a disability that makes it difficult for you to prepare for, get, or keep a job.

These are GVRA's main programs:

• Vocational Rehabilitation (VR), which helps people with disabilities find and maintain employment. Here are a few of its services:
  • Assistive Work Technology finds the technology that can best help you on the job
  • Supported Employment (SE) offers people with significant disabilities three types of supported employment: Traditional SE, Customized SE, and IPS (Individual Placement & Supports) SE
  • Project Independence helps adults 55 or older dealing with vision loss or combined vision and hearing loss live as independently as possible
  • Counseling information and referral services
• Disability Adjudication Services (DAS), which works with the Social Security Administration to decide if a person's disability meets the standards for SSA benefits
• The Business Enterprise Program, which helps blind or low vision Georgians become independent business owners in the food service industry
• Georgia Industries for the Blind, which employs people who are blind in jobs that involve manufacturing high-quality file folders, safety vests, pillows, customized screen printing, sewing projects, and other products that are sold to the public

GVRA can be your service provider (called an employment network) for the Ticket to Work program, or you may be eligible for GVRA services without being in the Ticket program.

Learn more about GVRA services and how to apply.

GVRA Transition Services for Students

Georgia students with disabilities who are 14 through 21 years old can get GVRA Transition Services to help them go from high school to higher education or training, or directly into a job, helping them to become productive, self-sufficient adults. While in high school they can get Pre-Employment Transition Services (Pre-ETS) and after high school they may be eligible for other GVRA programs.

The Pre-ETS team can include specialized transition counselors and liaisons, as well as high school teachers, family members, and the eligible student. A VR counselor can help develop a career goal and pick classes and work-related activities to help meet that goal through an Individual Plan for Employment (IPE).

Learn more about GVRA Transition Services or call GVRA at 1-844-367-4872.