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Karen Davidson
Personal Biography:
Karen Davidson is the Regional Coordinator for Services for Education and Employment (SEE) with the Tulare County Office of Education. For the past nine years, she has been managing job placement and vocational training programs through various contracts and grants serving disadvantaged adults, welfare families and adults with disabilities. She is currently managing a contract with the Social Security Administrations’ Ticket to Work program which helps people on Social Security disability return to work. She also manages a program called MOVE (More Opportunity for Viable Employment) which relocates welfare families from Tulare County to areas throughout the United States in order to find viable employment.
Karen is on the Board of Directors of the National Employment Network Association. She is a member of the City of Visalia Disability Advocacy Committee, the Central Valley Mayor’s Committee for the Partnership and Advocacy of People with Disabilities, the Tulare County Training and Employment Association, the California Workforce Association, and the Visalia Chamber of Commerce. She is an Ambassador for the National Ticket to Work program and has been a featured speaker on several national training teleconferences sponsored by the Social Security Administration and the National Employment Network Association. She has recently received two grants to provide training to service providers throughout California on the Ticket to Work program and recently launched an interactive community website nationally. In the private sector, Karen has 20 years experience in sales and marketing in financial services and the insurance industry. She owned her own agency for five years and demonstrates an entrepreneurial spirit in all of her endeavors. She graduated from Healds Business College in Fresno, California. She resides in Visalia, California and has two sons, Age 22 and 20, both currently attending college.
Goals:
Goals for the Fellowship
My goal for this program is to increase my capacity to serve disadvantaged adults and people with disabilities and increase public awareness of the tremendous obstacles faced by those with employment barriers. I would like to see more employers embrace the idea of hiring people with disabilities and encourage others to do so as well. My personal goal is to get my boys through college, relax a bit, and try to travel more.