[Ohio-talk] America's Failure to get Disability People Jobs

[Suzanne Turner]

When Rita Landgraf ran Delaware's main disability rights organization in the
mid-1980s, there was an effort to get clients into the workplace, but that
rarely meant an ordinary workplace. It typically was an out-of-the-way
facility where they'd be grouped together performing menial tasks -- putting
arms into the plastic torsos of toy soldiers, placing bows on boxes or
performing other repetitive work, all at a pay well below the minimum wage.
It was an improvement on the sterile residential facilities to which these
people had once been confined. But in Landgraf's view, it was nowhere near
enough. She believed that, with some help, even those with severe
disabilities could work right alongside the rest of the labor force. She
wasn't the first in the country to focus on placing clients in integrated
workplaces instead of what are commonly known as "sheltered workshops," but
she was out in front of the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990
(ADA), which banned discrimination and promised better access to public and
private places.

This year, as the Disabilities Act marks its 25th anniversary, proponents
such as Landgraf point to all it has accomplished in the way of access,
opportunity and inclusion. But in one respect, the law has mostly failed: It
has not led to more jobs. The employment rate for the disabled remains
basically unchanged after a quarter-century, and many of the 34 percent of
Americans with disabilities who do have jobs are in sheltered workshops
earning around $2 an hour.

That's about to change. The federal agencies that oversee Medicaid and labor
laws are demanding that states do more to offer employment opportunities to
people with disabilities. The Justice Department is also threatening to sue
states to open up the work system. These moves amount to a dramatic shift in
disability policy and could spell the end for sheltered workshops that don't
adapt. "From my lens, not much has changed since the ADA with employment,"
says Landgraf, now Delaware's secretary of health and social services. On
the other hand, she says, "not only are those federal programs starting to
align themselves across the board, but stateside there's so much interest.
I'm starting to feel that for the first time."

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The push for integrated employment isn't without critics. Some parents of
the disabled and the nonprofits that run sheltered workshops and other
services fear the shift will neglect people who depend on the workshops as a
social outlet and for employment as they try to find suitable outside jobs.
But advocates of change, including some parents, insist that integrated
employment is essential for people with disabilities to realize their full
potential and that the benefits range from reduced reliance on social
welfare to increased workplace diversity. Regardless of the controversy,
change is coming. And states will be at the center of this next phase in a
civil rights movement that has at its end a vision of greater community
inclusion. As the situation stands now, they still have a long way to go.

A defining moment for the integrated workforce movement goes back to a U.S.
Supreme Court decision in 1999. In Olmstead v. L.C., the high court ruled in
favor of two Georgia women who wanted to be released from institutional care
to a community setting after clinical assessments found that to be the best
fit for them. The court held that people with disabilities must be provided
services in the most integrated setting possible if that's what they want.
There was some question whether the decision applied to employment services
as well as residential facilities, but federal programs and initiatives that
followed Olmstead stressed integrated employment as the preferred national
policy, though they didn't do much to enforce it.

A 2012 Oregon case called Lane v. Kitzhaber helped erase doubt that the
federal government would strictly enforce Olmstead in employment. And during
the past year, the federal government has signaled that states must do more
in exchange for federal funding. In April 2014, the Department of Justice
announced a settlement with Rhode Island that forced the state to help find
work for 3,250 people with disabilities. The department had found that
nearly half of the people in Rhode Island's sheltered workshops -- funded
largely through Medicaid as "prevocational training" -- had been there for
at least a decade, earning an average of $2.21 an hour.

Rita Landgraf, Delaware secretary of health and social services, with a
young integrated Walgreens employee.

Working for years, even decades, in a setting that was meant to be
transitional is fairly common in most states. But now the Centers for
Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which funds long-term support for
people with disabilities, is telling states that transitional programs can't
last forever. CMS is giving states five years to move away from
shelter-based systems, and warning them that facilities filled almost
entirely with disabled people or designed specifically for them shouldn't
get funding. This means states will have to reserve Medicaid payments for
service providers who are focused on what's called "supported employment,"
which includes help finding a job and maintaining it through coaching and
other assistance. States will also have to defund facility-based "day
habilitation" services, which are essentially recreational activities for
groups of disabled people. That could signal a greater shift toward
activities within public spaces like libraries and museums, tailored to
individual interests for people with disabilities who aren't working. 

Another big policy change last year was the enactment of the federal
Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. It requires state workforce
agencies to spend 15 percent of their federal funding to help young people
with disabilities transition into the workforce with job placement services
and on-the-job experiences such as internships. The new law also makes it
harder for vocational rehabilitation agencies, which serve people with
disabilities on a shorter-term basis than Medicaid, to place any clients
under the age of 24 in a sheltered workshop without first exposing them to
integrated jobs. Delaware, for one, is opening up Medicaid funding to
support work experiences for youth as young as 14. "The intent of Congress
is to say, if we want to raise the outcomes and the number of people with
disabilities who get employed, we need to start making sure that students
with disabilities are better able to enter the workforce," says Andrea
Guest, Delaware's director of vocational rehabilitation.

That will mean forging deeper partnerships among state agencies, public
schools and private businesses.

 <https://plot.ly/~governing/86/> 

A number of governors, both Democrats and Republicans, are pushing
especially hard to spur action in the private sector. Among them is
Delaware's Jack Markell, who focused his 2012 chairmanship of the National
Governors Association on the issue of jobs for disabled persons. Between
2011 and 2013, employment in Delaware among people with disabilities
increased 8.6 percent.

The state has held meetings of business leaders and disability advocates
that have led to high-profile commitments from technology firms and the
health-care industry. Among private employers, Walgreens has earned high
marks from advocates for promoting jobs for people with disabilities in
distribution centers and stores. "The only way this is going to be
sustainable is if businesses take the lead," Markell says. "But a better
approach is having vocational rehabilitation agencies approach them and say,
'I want to understand your needs, and I'll bring you a bunch of candidates,
some of whom have disabilities and some who don't.'"

Delaware may be attracting the most attention at the moment, but other
states have been working toward the same goal for years. Minnesota, for
example, was among several states that received grant money in 1999 to
establish statewide call centers to help maintain independence for people
with disabilities. Today, Minnesota has one of the highest disability
employment rates in the country at 46 percent, and one of the lowest gaps in
employment between disabled people and the general population at 36 percent.
The national gap is 40 percent.

But as in other states, Minnesota's overall employment numbers mask a
reliance on segregated, facility-based services. About 72 percent of those
served by the state's disability agencies -- some 12,000 people -- are
employed in sheltered workshops. In nearby Iowa, where disability employment
stands at about 45 percent, nearly 80 percent of those served by state
disability agencies spend their time in sheltered workshops or segregated
day centers.

But Iowa is actively moving toward a more integrated workforce model. Using
federal grants, the state has started a program helping disability service
providers learn how to better analyze the needs of local businesses,
maximize state and federal funding, and train staff. It launched with six
providers in 2013, then expanded by another 14 last year and another 16 this
year. The state says providers placed 427 clients in integrated employment
last year. That's a step toward Iowa's goal, but it only represents a sliver
of a system that serves about 13,000 Iowans altogether.

For now, the Iowa system remains heavily tilted toward institutional
facilities, says Emmanuel Smith, an investigator with Disability Rights
Iowa. "Attitudes have been changing in the past two years, and I don't want
to minimize their importance in this whole process," he says, "but overall
funding for employment services is one of the ways we can transform things
quickly." According to Smith's group, 88 percent of the state's spending on
day and work services still goes to mostly segregated places.

Segregated workshops may sound like an insensitive or antiquated approach.
But many advocates for the disabled still view that model as a key part of
helping their clients find meaningful work. Elwyn, a national provider that
operates a work center based in Wilmington, Del., is typical of sheltered
workshops in most of the country. Many of the approximately 145 disabled
people that it serves work both in integrated jobs and in Elwyn's sheltered
workshop -- say, one or two days at a hospital or a retail job, then a
couple of days at the workshop socializing with friends and sorting
discarded X-rays for recycling or manufacturing military medals. Kendra
Johnson, Elwyn's director, has an individual plan for every client and views
the workshop as a bridge for many of them. "We support you where you are, to
get you where you want to be," she says. "A work center isn't for everyone,
day habilitation isn't for everyone, integrated employment isn't for
everyone. I'm concerned about the people who will fall between the cracks."

Even some parents of people with disabilities think integration isn't a good
idea for everyone. Craig Harwood lives in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, with his wife
and son Dan, a 34-year-old with Down syndrome and a seizure disorder. Dan
works in a sheltered environment for 25 to 30 hours a week doing the kind of
rote manufacturing jobs typical of workshops. His father says he'd love for
Dan to work in an integrated environment but "it's just not in the cards."
Although Dan is mostly nonverbal, he has friends at his facility and a job
he likes. The facility, called Options, has already decided to close down
rather than try to adapt to the new federal rules, and Craig fears Dan will
be relegated to a day center "doing a puzzle or watching TV," or else be
stuck at home because he can't find work hours comparable to the ones he had
before. "The pendulum is swinging too far," Craig Harwood says. "Don't get
me wrong -- offering integrated settings to people is critical. But we're
throwing away facility choices in doing so, and I think that's going to be
bad for my son."

People like Harwood and Johnson worry that the shift to integrated
workplaces will ultimately result in less productive lives for many disabled
individuals. That's likely a valid concern, given the experiences of early
adopter states. Vermont, for example, closed most of its sheltered workshops
in the 1980s and 1990s, and shuttered its last facility in 2002. Since then,
integrated employment has shot up 50 percent. But the numbers don't tell the
whole story: By the most recent count, disabled employees in integrated
workplaces in Vermont work an average of only nine hours a week. When
they're not working, they're spending time doing recreational activities
together in supervised spaces. But the low working hours alarm critics.

Similarly, the District of Columbia, which stopped funding sheltered
workshops more than a decade ago, has struggled to place disabled residents
in integrated jobs. The percentage of people in integrated employment has
actually fallen since 2009, placing D.C. near the bottom nationally, and the
number in segregated day programs has climbed in recent years. District
officials blame systematic weaknesses in public education and poor
coordination among those responsible for transition employment for people
with disabilities -- issues that will now become even more prevalent thanks
to the federal policy changes.

Kendra Johnson, director of the Elwyn center: "I'm concerned about the
people who will fall between the cracks."

Some places are much further along in the shift to integration, and their
achievements have come without formally closing sheltered workshops. But
they demonstrate that lasting change takes time -- sometimes decades -- and
strong parent advocacy in particular. Washington state was the first, in the
1970s, to set strong protections for people with disabilities to be educated
in public schools. In the 1980s, the state set standards for disability
agencies, with the pursuit of individual employment as the primary
objective. "The whole discussion changed, and it was no longer, 'What do we
do with these people' but 'How do we get them jobs?'" says Margaret-Lee
Thompson, a parent advocate who was active in the state in the 1980s and
remains a prominent national voice.

Today Washington's trove of publicly and easily accessible disability data
has no equal in the country. The new federal labor rules making it harder to
place youth directly into sheltered workshops in some ways mirror an
existing Washington policy that's about a decade old. By the most recent
count, 86 percent of the people served by Washington disability agencies
work in integrated settings, ranking the state first in the country.

Wisconsin's Dane County, home to the University of Wisconsin and the city of
Madison, has a similar story and today has one of the highest overall
disability employment rates in the country. There were disability champions
at the university who expanded their influence to the local school system,
and parental champions who took it from there. The county struck a deal with
its schools about 25 years ago, promising to continue providing employment
supports for recent graduates who had been getting their services from the
education system, without placing them on a waiting list. Every year, 85 to
90 percent of the disabled people who leave Dane County schools move into a
job, and 82 percent of those in Medicaid-funded employment services are in
integrated settings.

"It's become the culture," says Doug Hunt, a developmental disabilities
official. "It's the expectation that parents have, that schools have. It
took time to build that momentum, but that culture of creating higher
expectations of employment for people with disabilities, the cumulative
impact of that is what we're seeing now."

Neither Washington state nor Dane County is perfect. Both are struggling to
increase the number of working hours for disabled people, a problem with no
easy solutions. It will require attitude adjustments among employers, and
greater spending on employment supports so people can keep their jobs and
work more hours. It means working harder to place people in jobs that are
the best fit for them. (Numerous studies suggest that actually will save
governments money in the long run, since they'll spend less on job coaches
and work support for their clients.)

Still, agencies feel enormous pressure to get it right. "The fear is if the
tools aren't there, people will be sent home, sitting on a couch with their
parents, and having no opportunities," says Landgraf, the Delaware
secretary. "How do we take our existing system and possibly redefine it and
redesign it?"

The states have a lot of work to do to answer that question.

State Employment Data for Disabled, Nondisabled

Nondisabled workers are employed at greater rates, but the disparity varies
from state to state. The following table shows the share of the age 18-to-64
civilian noninstitutionalized population who are employed:


State

% of Disabled Employed

% of Non-disabled Employed

Difference

				

Alaska

47.8

75.2

27.4


Arizona

33.6

71.3

37.7


Arkansas

28.2

72.7

44.5


California

32.7

71.1

38.4


Colorado

42.3

77.3

35.0


Connecticut

40.0

76.4

36.4


Delaware

36.4

75.1

38.7


District of Columbia

33.9

73.5

39.6


Florida

30.5

72.2

41.7


Georgia

31.5

71.5

40.0


Hawaii

39.1

75.7

36.5


Idaho

36.7

75.2

38.5


Illinois

36.1

75.0

38.9


Indiana

33.8

76.0

42.3


Iowa

44.8

82.1

37.2


Kansas

41.7

79.0

37.3


Kentucky

26.9

73.7

46.8


Louisiana

31.3

72.4

41.1


Maine

31.2

78.8

47.6


Maryland

40.0

78.3

38.2


Massachusetts

34.9

77.9

42.9


Michigan

29.9

73.4

43.5


Minnesota

46.0

82.1

36.1


Mississippi

26.3

69.4

43.1


Missouri

33.0

77.1

44.2


Montana

39.4

76.8

37.4


Nebraska

45.5

82.6

37.1


Nevada

39.2

73.1

33.9


New Hampshire

41.8

80.3

38.5


New Jersey

36.6

75.1

38.5


New Mexico

35.3

70.1

34.8


New York

32.2

73.3

41.1


North Carolina

30.3

73.5

43.2


North Dakota

52.8

83.1

30.2


Ohio

33.5

75.9

42.4


Oklahoma

35.8

75.2

39.4


Oregon

35.2

73.9

38.8


Pennsylvania

33.9

75.6

41.7


Rhode Island

34.3

76.3

42.0


South Carolina

30.7

72.7

41.9


South Dakota

48.1

83.0

34.9


Tennessee

29.9

74.1

44.1


Texas

38.7

74.7

36.0


Utah

42.5

76.6

34.1


Vermont

33.3

79.6

46.3


Virginia

36.9

76.9

40.0


Washington

36.4

74.7

38.3


West Virginia

25.3

70.6

45.3


Wisconsin

40.9

80.1

39.2

Processing...

SOURCE: Governing calculations of 2013 American Community Survey 1-Year
Estimates

 <http://www.governing.com/authors/Chris-Kardish.html> Chris Kardish  |
Staff Writer 

  _____  

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Real Life5ptsFeatured
4 days ago

Parent/Disability Professional

It is all about choice; a wide array of options for a wide array of people.
Disability does not define a person or their needs.

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 <http://www.livefyre.com/profile/80987477/> Another Parent 5ptsFeatured
8 days ago

I'm a single mother of 2 children, 1 with Autism, intellegictual and medical
disabities, and the other with just Autism. Niether of my childern will ever
be a fully independant adult.  Because of this, I'm very concerned about the
one size fits mentality that is currently going on.  The employment that a
sheltered workshop provides may be appropriate for someone like my oldest
that is more highly impacted while private employment is a better fit for
someone who is less impacted.

I am currently dealing with fact that everyone assumes that all parents want
to keep their disabled children home until they die.  I want my children to
be as independent as possible but keeping them in my home until I die isn't
independence.  If they were typcially developed, my expectations would have
them to leave the nest and live on their own.  It should be no different for
someone who's disabled.  In addition, I can't think of anything crueler than
someone losing the parent you've lived with all your life and their home at
the same time.  These 2 events need to be separated. 

FlagShare

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 <http://www.livefyre.com/profile/58582630/> WriterCPA 5ptsFeatured
9 days ago

I find this article simultaneously disheartening, confusing, and optimistic.
I speak as one who from early childhood was raised by a mother with MS,
watched a brother struggle to continue working after an MS diagnosis, and
working with my own need for hearing aids.  All these years I have tried to
be an advocate and supporter for people with disabilities whenever possible.

 

My optimism comes from the fact that we are having this discussion and
looking for ways to provide people who can handle it with meaningful work in
non-segregated settings.  Nothing has changed since 1954, when the US
Supreme Court ruled that  "separate educational facilities are inherently
unequal." The point is equality of opportunity with, I think, the moderating
understanding that one size does not fit all in either education or
employment.  We need to make sure a full range of options are available to
all people, not just people with disabilities. That is something we still
fail to do for too many people.

 

I am disheartened that 25 years on it is obvious that there are still big
barriers to full employment for people with disabilities.  My observation is
that some of the worst are institutional.  The rules of the Social Security
Administration that make it hard for people with disabilities to even try
going back to work once they have fought the bureaucracy to obtain a
disability pension.  There is real fear that it things do not work out
people will be left without any source of income or forced to subsist on
wages that pay less than years of working have earned in a disability
pension. Watching friend battle with state vocational rehab orgs in several
states, I think other barriers come from counselors with limited
imaginations about what people can be trained or retrained to do.

 

Unfortunately, I find the statistics incomplete and misleading.  It seems
that only people who are part of a state's disabled case load are counted.
What percentage of the "non-disabled" are working with and without
reasonable accommodations from an employer that do not require intervention
from the state?  I'm not part of Maryland Division of Rehabilitation
Services case load and I am not retired on Social Security Disability; with
my hearing aids, and occasionally requesting that people repeat themselves
or not talk in back of me, I work.  Where do I appear in the numbers?   It
is also misleading to look at employment without some analysis by age, work
history, and education.  Are we looking college educated people facing
discrimination that the ADA should prevent? (Did some potential employers
notice my hearing aid and write me off? What I saw in their faces says,
"Yes, but I can't prove it.) Are we looking at people who were working and
no longer able to work due to a change in health status?

 

I would like to see an article with better data to support advocacy for
change.  I do not want all sheltered workshops to end; they are appropriate
for some people.  At the same time, I don't want to see lives squandered at
$2.00 per hour when people have the ability to do more.  I want to break
down barriers that make it hard for people who become disabled to return to
the workforce without becoming even more impoverished than they are with
Social Security disability retirements.

 

We fought hard to pass the ADA.  To take the next steps, we need hard data
to support doing the hard work of developing good policies and advocating
for change

 

 

 

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Disabled Worker5ptsFeatured
9 days ago

" A work center isn't for everyone, day habilitation isn't for everyone,
integrated employment isn't for everyone. I'm concerned about the people who
will fall between the cracks". The person who mentions this is on the money.
Its just as counterproductive to "cookie cutter" employment in this manner
as it is using past cookie cutter approaches. Trying to force the issue
using mainstreaming techniques will work for some disabled people, but not
all. Some will only work well in protective sheltered environments.

FlagShare

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All Kids Can Learn5ptsFeatured
9 days ago

This is an economic challenge for every U.S. citizen and a worthy pursuit
for businesses, schools and individuals to join forces. 

I believe we need to identify kids in middle school that are not necessarily
college bound due to a learning disability, physical or mental challenge.
Every 26 minutes a student drops out of school because they are bored,
frustrated or lack instruction they can grasp on their ability level. One in
5 students drop out if they are in special education. Career and vocational
education curriculum has the potential to prepare more kids for work they
are eager and able to perform. More personalized IEPs that include career
education curriculum may help more kids transition post-school to the
workforce, whether it's packing boxes, working in a white collar job or a
mechanic shop. Yes..worthy pursuit - let's make it happen America!  

FlagShare

LikeReply



parent and employer5ptsFeatured
10 days ago

We have to remember that perhaps some people do not want to be employed
also. we employed a young lady who was disabled and after a few months she
told us her case manager and mother had forced her into the position, while
she hated what she was doing. I also have a severely disabled adult son and
he is quite happy being at home and working on his music all day. It is
important that, like all of us, the disabled person finds the employment
both enjoyable and meaningful to them.

FlagShare

LikeReply



Another Concerned Parent5ptsFeatured
12 days ago

While a noble idea, you are not going to get jobs for individuals with
disabilities unless you change the perception of the business owners. My
son, for example, is deaf. He has been looking for a job in our hometown
(which happens to be the state capitol) for over a year now with no luck.
Even working through an employment agency and VR, he continues to run into
road blocks. Employers are willing to give him a tour of their facility, but
quickly come up with reasons why they just don't have employment
opportunities for him. Much of those reasons center around the fact that he
would have to work and communicate directly with the public or the equipment
would be dangerous for someone without hearing, etc. Unless you mandate
employers hire workers with disabilities (which in our currently political
environment will be a no starter) or provide large financial incentives
(which once again in our current environment will be open to abuse), any
attempt at reform is going to fail. The only ones that are going to suffer
are the disabled individuals that will see their support cut or greatly
reduced, and their ability to realize their potential taken away. 

FlagShare

LikeReply



concerned parent5ptsFeatured
12 days ago

I believe that everyone should have a choice for their employment situation
- whether you have a disability or not.  Without the ability to run
community rehabilitation programs that provide employment opportunities for
those with significant disabilities, the employment choice for those
individuals will be taken away.  Their choice will be to stay home or sit at
the same facility day in and day out without any opportunity to perform work
that gives them a sense of purpose in a safe, accepting environment.  The
choice for integrated employment is extremely important and everyone should
be given that opportunity but without other options, you have taken away an
individual's choice.  What is fair about that?

FlagShare

1 <http://www.livefyre.com/profile/80949784/> LikeReply

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