Federal RETAIN program highlights Vermont participant who kept working after long COVID

The federal RETAIN early-intervention program helped a Vermont participant stay at work after long COVID, according to a program vignette released by RETAIN partners. A narrator explained that RETAIN is the first federally funded early-intervention effort to integrate health care and employment services and that the effort is led by the U.S. Department of Labor's Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) in partnership with the Employment and Training Administration, the Chief Evaluation Office and the Social Security Administration.

Julie, a fundraiser at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College, described the condition that made working difficult. "I have long COVID, which is COVID that doesn't go away," she said. She recounted struggling with fatigue and cognitive tasks, saying that "I had trouble taking notes. I would get fatigued easily."

Julie said she worked for six months during a severe period of her illness and at one point told her occupational therapist she thought she could not continue. Her therapist recommended trying Vermont Retain's services. The vignette notes that Vermont was one of five states participating in RETAIN phase 2, along with Kansas, Kentucky, Minnesota and Ohio.

The program vignette describes how Vermont Retain staff and a work-health coach helped Julie revise accommodations and served as a sounding board. "What I got was an immense amount of support," Julie said. Program narration said Derek, Julie's work-health coach, "helped her accept how her abilities had changed and regain her sense of self worth." The narrator added that recommended accommodations were low cost and easy to implement, and that the supports allowed Julie to "continue to be a healthy and productive employee."

A program speaker framed the broader goals of RETAIN this way: the program helps people develop skills, voice and confidence to advocate for workplace needs and, in doing so, can affect health equity, economic equity and workforce strength. The vignette closes with Julie saying, "Vermont Retain made that possible for me in a way that I didn't understand I needed and I can't live without."

The vignette is testimonial and descriptive; it does not include formal program evaluation data, specific funding amounts or policy changes. It uses participant testimony to illustrate how work-health coaching and simple accommodations can enable continued employment for someone with long COVID. The RETAIN partners named in the vignette are ODEP, the Employment and Training Administration, the Chief Evaluation Office and the Social Security Administration. No votes, motions or formal government actions were recorded in the vignette.