The Two Sides of the Employment First Coin
Like a two-sided coin, the advocacy movement of Employment First has two core linked components.
Like a two-sided coin, the advocacy movement of Employment First has two core linked components.
The first side is about ending obsolete practices –
to phase out the needless segregation, less-than-minimum wages, and limited
work tasks given to people with disabilities that make up much of sheltered
work.
The second side is to provide a system that
supports, for every individual with a disability, a preference for quality
employment services that are individualized. These are services that lead to
well-matched jobs to enhance productivity, social success, and wages in
community integrated businesses.
The success of both goals are interdependent. Moving
people with disabilities out of sheltered workshops does not achieve the goal
of a quality life if, after leaving, they remain excluded from typical
community life, and instead sit home doing nothing, or be relegated to day
programs focusing on non-vocational activities, or fail in poorly-matched and
weakly-supported jobs.
And this is what might happen if states close
workshops without investing in supported employment services. If states just
maintain their supported employment for the small percentage of people
receiving those services (about 22% nationally in the US), this will only
perpetuate a serious bottleneck to employment people with significant
disabilities have faced for the last 30 years. New services must be expanded or
incubated to be able to serve more people.
In addition, the level of quality of such services
varies widely from place to place. Far too few agencies are well versed in
marketing planning, job analysis and customization, or naturally sustainable
job support strategies. A commitment to cutting edge service is a needed
investment.
But, as well, ending a segregated approach with
demonstrably poor outcomes must be part of the discussion of what needs to
change. We cannot just ignore this half of the goal. Many of the large disability
service agencies take the position that segregated facilities will just “fade
away on their own” (to quote one such position paper) once better employment
services are offered. But that is overly simplistic and has proven untrue over
time. It will take proactive steps to end the current reliance on sheltered
employment as a solution to work for people with disabilities.
If we consider both sides of Employment First, then
we must acknowledge three basic conclusions.
1. First,
change won’t occur until we freeze referrals to sheltered workshops, as is
finally now being done in several states. Then there must be an active process
to downsize the census over time.
1. Two,
offering quality employment services to many more people requires a large
investment in capacity-building. This includes not only core basic training for
the new staff that must be hired, but also in-service development to greatly
increase the quality of career planning, job development, and job support. Many
agencies still only provide rudimentary levels of these skill sets.
1. And,
finally, if established agencies are to successful change their missions and
services, they must have access to technical assistance on organizational
restructuring. Agency conversion can be complex and fraught with land mines,
from family resistance, management restructuring, and the changing of agency
mission and staff organization. Agencies taking this leap must be offered
support, guidance and the resources necessary for them to succeed.
Posted by Dale DiLeo on
12/2/2013 at 9:12 AM