Position Type: VISTA
Service Commitment: August 25, 2025 – August 24, 2026
Final Application Deadline: July 15, 2025
Car required? Recommended
Driver’s License Required? Yes
Position Summary:
Disability Rights Montana is the federally mandated disability civil rights protection and advocacy system for Montana. They protect and advocate for the human, legal, and civil rights of Montanans with disabilities. Through a range of law-based advocacy strategies they work on behalf of the disability community in education; employment; independent living; healthcare; voting rights; freedom from abuse, neglect, exploitation, and discrimination in order to help its members live with dignity, equality, and self-determination. They actively work to operationalize policy and stand at the intersection of policy and its real-life impacts. They actively engage with the community they serve through outreach, organizing, training, technical assistance and direct advocacy and regularly monitor places where people with disabilities live, work, and learn.
The goal of this project is to help people with disabilities achieve competitive, integrated employment that pays a living wage. Disability Rights Montana strongly believes that if people with disabilities have the support they need to succeed in school, in work, and in living independently then they can be self-sufficient and move out of poverty. A desired outcome of this project is to not only empower individuals, but to enable those with disabilities to achieve careers that empower other people facing disabilities.
The VISTA member will design and implement a survey instrument to understand barriers that individuals with disabilities face in education, employment, and independent living. The VISTA will conduct outreach to engage members of the disability community in sharing their experiences, develop recommendations and action items to address these barriers, and report this information in various accessible formats.
Montana Campus Network for Civic Engagement (MCNCE) serves as the intermediary for this project. MCNCE is a CEO-led coalition of colleges and universities that support civic engagement, service learning, and volunteerism across the state. Every year we place cohorts of full-time, part-time, and summer AmeriCorps members with schools, colleges, nonprofits, and government agencies in Montana. The AmeriCorps projects we facilitate increase educational equity, break down barriers between higher education and community organizations, and address the root causes of poverty in communities across the state.
Professional Skills You Will Gain
- Communications
- Intercultural Relations
- Leadership
- Marketing
- Nonprofit Administration
- Partnership Development
- Partnership Management
- Program Development
- Public Speaking
- Rural Community Outreach
- Community Research
- Teamwork
- Time Management