Despite numerouse national and state policies promoting integrated employment, 76% of adults with intellectual or developmental disabilities are served in facility-based, segregated programs – usually work activity centers or sheltered workshops. Whenever advocates talk about closing a sheltered workshop so the people there can get real jobs, the argument of choice is raised. “But this is where they want to be…” You are taking away their right to chose…”
In a recent article published in the Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation, authors Migliore, Mank, Grossi and Rogan look at whether or not this gap between policy and practice is in part due to the lack of interest of adults with intellectual disabilities and their families for employment outside facility-based programs.
The authors surveyed 210 adults with intellectual disabilities in 19 sheltered workshops, their respective families or caregivers, and staff members in these workshops. They found that 74% of adults with intellectual disabilities, 67% of families, and 66% of staff felt those they serve would prefer employment outside workshops, or at least consider it as an option. The majority of all groups believed that adults with intellectual disabilities can perform outside workshops if support is made available.
The study highlighted the fact that the preference for employment outside of workshops is not associated with the severity of the disability. So, who is restricting choice? Perhaps it is those who insist that employment service dollars be spent on an obsolete model.
Source: Migliore, A., Mank, D., Grossi, T., and Rogan, P. (2007). Integrated employment or sheltered workshops: Preferences of adults with intellectual disabilities, their families, and staff. Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation Vol. 26, No. 1, pp. 5–19.
Anonymous
As the CEO of a sheltered workshop, I find most of your commentary to be very general in nature, and offers little in suggestions regarding ‘support’ in community employment. We employ 150 mentally disabled, many of whom make minimum wage. We train to increase productivity, ergo, wages.
We also operate as a business. However, the disabilities of our employees requires greater supervision than private industry, fixtures to assist them in doing their work and constant retraining. I would like to hear about the types of jobs that you feel are available. We operated a community placement program, too, and saw successes and failures. Most of the failures were from the environment in which they worked. Little understanding of their needs, not much help with their tasks, etc. You suggest that everyone should make at least minimum wage. The non-handicapped person making minimum wage may be able to perform more tasks unsupervised than the handicapped person who can only check membership cards at the athletic club. Who do you think the employer will choose?
While possibly capable of working in competitve employment, many disabled workers do not want the stress of those kinds of jobs. Many cannot function under that kind of stress and fail when they try. Where do they go then if sheltered employment is not available?
Perhaps you should offer some suggestions that are more specific, especially addressing the costs of running a business with employees with much lower skills. I would be interested to hear them.