Parallels In Time
A History of Developmental Disabilities

The Rehab Act lays out the basic principles to which all projects and programs that the Act funds will comply.

Several important sets of policies flow from these principles, so it is important to review their implications.

The first principle is respect for people with disabilities, particularly in regard to individual dignity, personal responsibility, self-determination, and the pursuit of meaningful careers based on informed choice.

The second principle is respect for the privacy, rights, and equal access of people.

The third principle is the inclusion, integration, and full participation of individuals in all activities and programs that the Rehab Act funds.

The fourth principle is the inclusion of a person's representative for support if the person with a disability asks, wants, or needs that person included.

The final principle is support for individual advocacy, systemic advocacy, and community involvement.

Reading farther into the Rehab Act, we reach Title One, which provides the foundation of the public rehabilitation system.

This section establishes - or authorizes - the state VR programs and their funding, and outlines the responsibilities of the agencies that administer the program in each state.

But before it does that, Title One spells out another set of policy principles specifically for the public rehabilitation system.

These are the principles the VR agencies are to follow as they assess, plan, develop, and provide VR services to help people with disabilities prepare for - and achieve - employment.

The first principle says VR agencies will presume that people with disabilities - including those with the most significant disabilities - are capable of being employed - or, as the Act puts it, of achieving employment outcomes.

The agencies will also presume that providing individualized VR services will improve each person's ability to find a job.

The second principle says that an agency has to provide opportunities for a person with a disability to find employment in integrated settings - which means the workplace is typical for the community and involves regular contact with non-disabled people.

The third principle says that people with disabilities must be active and full partners in the VR process from the moment they apply for services - even before a VR counselor determines if they are eligible or not.

This means that informed, meaningful choice starts with application, not eligibility.

The person applying for VR services must be involved in the decisions about getting assessments to find out if they are eligible.

If the counselor determines that the person is eligible for services, the person must be an active and full partner making informed decisions about selecting an employment outcome, choosing services to reach that outcome, choosing service providers, and deciding how to obtain the services.

The fourth principle says that families and other natural support systems can be important parts of the VR process.

If the person with a disability wants or needs to include them in the process, those natural supports should be used.

The fifth principle says that the VR process works better at helping people reach employment outcomes and objectives when the V-R counselors and other staff are trained and qualified for their jobs.

The sixth principle says that VR agencies must involve people with disabilities and their representatives when developing and implementing policies.

The agency must consider them full partners in the VR program and include them in a regular and meaningful way.

The seventh and final principle says VR agencies must use accountability measures that promote and support the goals and objectives of the VR program.

The principle singles out one goal for definite inclusion in the measures - providing VR services to people with the most significant disabilities.

These seven principles - presumed employability and benefit from services, integrated employment, partnership in decision-making, natural support systems, trained service staff, partnership in policy-making, and accountability - lay the foundation for how the public rehabilitation system will operate.

As described earlier, the Rehab Act establishes RSA to monitor, advise, and support the public rehabilitation system.

To guide its work, RSA has developed a set of six Policy Principles that echo and elaborate those from the Rehab Act.

The first policy says that all people with disabilities - including those with the most significant disabilities - can work in competitive, high-quality jobs in integrated settings in the community.

They can also live full and productive lives as part of their community.

The second policy says that some of the major barriers to employment for people with disabilities are people's biases and misunderstandings.

These include misunderstandings about the abilities, capacities, commitment, creativity, interests, and ingenuity of people with disabilities.

These attitudinal barriers can exist in the minds of the general public, VR service providers, or people with disabilities themselves.

Policy three says that people with disabilities can make informed choices about their own lives and take responsibility for the results.

This includes making informed choices about employment options, types of services they need to reach their employment goals, and which service providers to use.

Policy four says that the primary goal of VR agencies and the public rehabilitation system is empowering people with disabilities so they can make informed choices about their professional and personal lives.

The VR agencies support consumers' decision-making by providing information, skills training, education, confidence, and support services.

Policy five says that the VR program should be flexible enough to provide services with the least administrative burden possible while still allowing accountability.

And policy six says that, when rehabilitation service providers collaborate with community-based organizations that represent people with disabilities, the collaboration enhances the quality of VR services and improves employment outcomes.

These interlocking sets of principles and policies clearly show the commitment of the public rehabilitation system to provide a comprehensive and flexible network of supports that respects the dignity of people with disabilities.

In addition, real world experience has prompted RSA to elaborate further on several key policy issues - High-Quality Employment Outcomes, Competitive Employment Outcomes, Informed Choice, and Program Accountability.

In the past, there have been varying definitions of what type of job would represent successful employment for a VR consumer.

The Rehab Act and RSA policy say that an Employment Outcome is the career goal spelled out in the person's Individualized Plan for Employment - or IPE.

The counselor and the person with a disability choose this goal as a team, and they should make the decision based, primarily, on the person's Primary Employment Factors - the person's interests, strengths, resources, priorities, concerns, abilities, and capabilities.

This policy applies even to situations where the person with a disability already has a job but needs

VR help to advance in it as a career.

Both the Act and RSA Policy put a high priority on Competitive Employment as the best, or "optimal," employment outcome.

Competitive employment means that the salary for the job is at least minimum wage, and that the salary and benefits are equal to those the employer gives people without disabilities doing the same type of job.

And finally, competitive employment means the job is in an integrated setting - in a typical setting for jobs in that community and the person with a disability interacts regularly with people who do not have disabilities.

RSA has emphasized the issue of informed choice with a special Policy Directive on the subject.

This directive says that, in addition to providing opportunities for informed choice, State VR programs must also provide any information, support, and assistance that the person needs to make an informed choice.

The agencies must provide these opportunities and resources throughout the entire VR process.

This specifically includes decisions about the employment goal, what V-R services the person needs,which service providers to use, what settings to use for the services and the final employment, and how to procure the services.

Agencies should provide the resources both to people with disabilities whom the agency has approved for services and to people who have applied for services.

How does one measure how well an agency is doing in complying with these policies and principles?

Section 106 of the Rehab Act requires RSA to create a set of evaluation standards and performance indicators that do that.

These indicators form the official report card to judge how a state agency is performing.

The standard that measures employment outcomes has six elements, or Performance Indicators: Performance Indicator 1.1 is the number of people achieving an employment outcome - or Status 26 closures in traditional V-R terms - in the state for the current year compared to last year.

Performance Indicator 1.2 is the percent of people who reached Status 26 out of all the people who got services from the agency this year.

Performance Indicator 1.3 is the percent of people reaching Status 26 whose jobs are considered competitive employment.

It is one of three that RSA considers Primary Indicators - the ones most important for the program.

Performance Indicator 1.4 is the percent of people reaching Status 26 who had a significant disability.

It is also a Primary Indicator.

Performance Indicator One Point Five is the average hourly pay of people reaching Status 26 compared to the average for the state's general population.

It is the third Primary Indicator.

And Performance 1.6 is the number of people who were living, primarily, off their own salary when they first came to VR for services compared to the number living off their own salary when they exit VR.

In other words, how many people has the agency helped become financially self-supporting who used to depend on Social Security Disability Income or some similar source of money?

RSA requires that each agency meet or exceed expected performance levels on four of these six indicators, including at least two of the three Primary Indicators.

If an agency does not meet this standard, it must work with RSA to develop a Program Improvement Plan.

These indicators are one way that RSA helps the public VR program focus on high-quality employment outcomes instead of simply the number of services provided or the number of people who found a job.

One can think of these RSA policies as the real-life expression and implementation of the philosophies spelled out in the Rehab Act.

Both the Rehab Act and the RSA policies represent the cumulative experience of more than 80 years providing vocational rehabilitation services to Americans with disabilities.

The emphasis placed on human dignity, on individual self-determination, and on program accountability and flexibility are not just idealistic philosophies of social reformers.

They are the result of practical experience about what works to help more people with disabilities reach economic self-sufficiency in their local community.