Vocational Guidance Services (VGS) helps people with physical disabilities, mental disabilities, economic challenges or a history of incarceration find jobs!

VGS changes lives and strengthens communities with services that enhance personal abilities, break down barriers to employment, and help individuals realize their potential.  Our mission is: Preparing People with Barriers to Employment for a Brighter Future.

VGS has been a national leader in helping individuals realize brighter futures since 1890.  Annually, the agency provides a variety of services to nearly 5,000 individuals with physical or mental disabilities, economic challenges, and other barriers to employment, such as a history of incarceration.  A comprehensive range of services including work evaluation, work adjustment, skills training, social enterprise work opportunities, and placement are available to community members receiving assistance from VGS.

People from all avenues of life come to VGS to receive services that will put them on the road to a better future through employment.  Most have multiple barriers to employment arising from a number of medical/emotional conditions and/or life situations.

As a prudent financial steward, VGS leverages philanthropic dollars with its own revenue-generating endeavors built out of collaborative partnerships and public and private contract opportunities.  These activities enable the agency, each day, to provide paid work experiences for 1,000 individuals engaged in “learning while earning” activities.

Vocational Guidance Services was one of the first organizations to receive accreditation by CARF International, the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities.  Recently, VGS was the first agency to receive its fifteenth consecutive, three-year accreditation which extends to August 2012.  VGS is also registered as a Proprietary School in the State of Ohio (State Board Proprietary School Registration Certification # 79-10-0671T).

A highly acclaimed and successful agency with over 120 years of dedicated experience serving individuals with disabilities, VGS is proud to be one of the largest private, not-for-profit vocational rehabilitation and job placement agencies in Ohio.  Since the beginning of the 21st century, the agency has shown an exceptional track record of directly placing, on average, 1,000 people with disabilities and other barriers to employment annually into jobs.   This work has a measurable impact on the economy.  When wages earned, taxes paid and welfare dollars saved are considered, VGS has an economic impact on the community of well over $20 million each year.