Welcome to SERN
The Self-Employment Resource Network (SERN)
SERN is an Illinois based not-for-profit educational corporation established for the purpose and promotion of the development and expansion of self-employment for persons with disabilities. Our mission is to locate relevant self-employment resources, translate those resources into user-friendly terms, facilitate networking opportunities, and to identify best practice procedures for persons with disabilities interested in becoming self-employed or maintaining a productive small business.
SERN welcomes anybody interested in self-employment into its general membership, particularly if you are:
- A person with a disability seeking or are presently self-employed
- A member of a federal, state or private entity providing services that promote self-employment
- A member of or participant in advocacy groups comprised of persons with disabilities and supportive family members
- A parent teacher or counselor-advisor of a student with a disability looking for carer alternatives
- A person or company representative looking to purchase services from self-employed individualswith disabilities
Goals 2009 – 2010
SERN is currently working to expand our small business mentor program to work across the entire illinois rehabilitation spectrum and to extend our mentoring program to include clients that are not receiving services from DRS. We are progressing towards exporting the concept of small business mentorship for persons with disabilities from a state level to a national level operation and improving a web-based education dispatch tool that will make our resources accessible to as many people as possible. These steps will help us accomplish our mission of promoting the development and expansion of self-employment for persons with disabilities
The History of SERN
The Self Employment Resource Network (SERN) was born from a work incentives working group meeting in 2000. The initial mission was to work as an advisory team for agencies assisting individuals with disabilities. This group concluded that a Task Force on Self Employment was necessary to in order to maximize our effectiveness in assisting populations that served persons with disabilities, we needed to form a Task Force on Self Employment. For more history on SERN click History of SERN