Ohio Vocational Rehabilitation Pre-ETS: Free Job Services for Students 14 to 21

Pre-Employment Transition Services are the single lowest-barrier entry point for students with disabilities to start building workplace skills in Ohio. They're available from age 14 through 21, they don't require a formal vocational rehabilitation case, and they're free.

Yet most families don't learn about Pre-ETS until their student is 16 or 17 — sometimes later. That's two or three years of available services left unused, simply because no one mentioned them.

What Pre-ETS Covers

OOD (Opportunities for Ohioans with Disabilities) delivers Pre-ETS through five categories, each designed as a short, introductory module:

Job Exploration Counseling — Career discussions, interest inventories, and local job market research. Students build a profile on OhioMeansJobs.com and explore career paths using resources on OhioEmploymentFirst.org.

Work-Based Learning — Real-world workplace exposure through job shadowing, business tours, and informational interviews. Students learn workplace expectations, shift structures, productivity requirements, and the unwritten cultural rules that formal training rarely covers.

Postsecondary Counseling — Guidance on what comes after high school: college disability service offices, admissions processes, trade credentials, vocational certifications, FAFSA, and scholarships.

Workplace Readiness — Practical soft skills: mock interviews, resume drafting, budgeting, transportation planning, and basic customer service. These are the day-one workplace skills that hiring managers look for.

Instruction in Self-Advocacy — Training on legal rights, workplace accommodations, disability disclosure decisions, and peer mentoring. Students learn how to advocate for themselves in IEP meetings and prepare for the workplace accommodation conversation with future employers.

Each category is typically capped at 8 hours of service. Pre-ETS is introductory by design — it's not long-term job coaching. Think of it as structured exposure that gives students enough real-world experience to inform their transition planning.

How to Access Pre-ETS

A student is classified as "Potentially Eligible" (PE) for Pre-ETS if they have a documented disability and need the services. Documentation can be an active IEP, a 504 Plan, or a Social Security award letter.

To start services, school staff submit a Request for Pre-Employment Transition Services form directly to OOD, along with the required disability documentation. The student doesn't need to apply for formal OOD vocational rehabilitation — this is a parallel track specifically for early exposure.

Parents can also initiate the request by contacting their local OOD office and asking about Pre-ETS for their student. If the school hasn't mentioned Pre-ETS by the time your child turns 14, you can bring it up at the next IEP meeting and request that the team invite an OOD representative.

When Pre-ETS Isn't Enough

Pre-ETS is limited by design. Eight hours of job exploration counseling gives a student a sense of what's out there. It doesn't provide the intensive, individualized support that many young adults need to actually land and keep a job.

When a student needs more — long-term job coaching, customized work trials, assistive technology for the workplace, or adaptive vehicle modifications — they need to move from Pre-ETS to a formal vocational rehabilitation case with OOD.

The formal VR application is submitted at OODWorks.com. OOD recommends filing at least two years before the student's expected high school exit. Once the application is in, OOD has 60 calendar days to determine eligibility and then 90 calendar days to develop and sign an Individualized Plan for Employment (IPE) with the student.

The IPE is where the real employment planning happens: it specifies the long-term job goal and catalogs the specific services OOD will fund. The difference between Pre-ETS and a formal IPE is the difference between "here's what jobs look like" and "here's the plan to get you into one."

Coordinating Pre-ETS with the IEP

Under OAC Rule 3301-51-07, the school district must invite OOD to the IEP meeting when the agency is likely to provide or pay for transition services, after obtaining the required signed written parental consent (or student consent once the student reaches the age of majority). Having OOD at the table means Pre-ETS activities can be directly written into the IEP's transition services section.

This coordination matters because the IEP team needs to know what the student is learning through Pre-ETS to set appropriate postsecondary goals. If a student has completed work-based learning through OOD and identified a career interest, that should directly inform the IEP's employment goals and course of study.

Without coordination, Pre-ETS happens in one silo and the IEP transition plan happens in another. The student ends up with a workplace readiness module that points toward retail and an IEP goal that points toward healthcare — and nobody connected the two.

For the step-by-step process of connecting Pre-ETS to the IEP transition plan and coordinating the handoff from Pre-ETS to formal VR services, the Ohio IEP Transition to Adulthood Guide includes an OOD application tracker with the 60-day and 90-day federal deadlines mapped out.

See more Ohio guides →