Archives 2011

employment first segregation sheltered workshops

A Candid Conversation on Disability Issues

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Recently, for a podcast sponsored by Griffin-Hammis Associates, Cary Griffin and I had a discussion about many facets of our service system. We talked about the resistance to change of sheltered work agencies, the needless persistence of sub-minimum wage, concerns we had about generalized employment training programs being developed for people with autism, flawed social enterprises, and other issues in the employment of people with disabilities. We also talked about what makes us optimistic and where successes with community integration were being found.

I’ve known Cary Griffin for over twenty plus years. He has been an extraordinary consultant and trainer in the disability field, and I have always considered him someone I could bounce ideas off of and get an honest answer. 

Sound interesting? Well, personally, I enjoyed it and found that it helped me clarify some things I feel strongly about. Rather than making some of the same points here, you can get the transcript of the conversation at http://trn-store.com/.
I think it’s an authentic discussion that touches on a lot of things, of which I’m sure some people will have disagreements. But certainly, the disability field is in need to air differing views of the status quo. Why? For starters, we spend an awful lot of taxpayer dollars on services for people with disabilities that, by and large, have had a history of pretty ineffectual, and sometimes alarming outcomes. And we are still labeling people, only now in new ways.

As always, we invite respectful comments – I look forward to reading your reactions.

Have a wonderful holiday season, everyone, and, (wherever you do it!) thanks for all that you do.

conversion segregation segregation supported employment sheltered workshops

The 80-20 Rule and A Call to Freeze Referrals to Sheltered Work

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The Pareto Principle is a well known economic theory that can be applied to a lot of situations. It goes something like this: about 80% of effectiveness is driven by just 20% of our activity. This distribution has also been found to relate to how a small number of people control 80% of the wealth. Or in business, how 80% of your income comes from just 20% of your customers. (Interestingly, some theories also note how 80% of your life’s problems comes from just 20% of those people you know…)
Whatever the actual percentages per situation, the 80-20 rule is fascinating in what it implies – that often we are involved with things that seem related to our goals, but are really not very significant to achieving them, and in fact can become distractions. We thus confuse being busy with accomplishment. But the Pareto Principle says that unless you are getting the right things done, your ‘busyness’ is just an illusion of progress. It’s the difference between a shotgun that scatters its impact with laser surgery that focuses it where it needs to be.
Let’s apply this to the continuing problem of segregation of people with disabilities. If we consider how little progress we have made with employment rates of people with disabilities, and how few segregated facilities have closed, one should wonder why this is. After all, we have had multi-million dollar system change grants, along with multitudes of conferences, research studies, and training over the years. We have definitely been busy. We’ve had lots of meetings, white papers, and hand-wringing on employment rates.
One problem as I see it is that within all these initiatives, we have not focused on the few that might matter at a systems level. For example, we invest money and time and then teach and promote a myriad of new and creative employment strategies that are applied for far too few people. It’s great to know creative ways to find a vocation; we do need this kind of information. But it’s now been over 30 years since the dawn of supported employment; I think we have enough of what we need by now to get going. Sure, things will progress and we will learn better ways of doing things. But this is like ignoring a burning building to repair the front steps. It’s long past time to prioritize!
I would propose that if you want people to eventually be employed and not spend their days in a segregated facility, you need a basic and realistic policy starting place. That is, you have to stop letting people now entering the adult service system to even gain entry into sheltered workshop services. Simply stop the workshop referrals now, and you at least “freeze” the magnitude of a problem that every day grows larger. 
This is of course just a simplistic step, and no real comprehensive solution, but it is the initial necessary baseline for change. It will take years to completely phase out workshops, and there will be real political and social battles along the way. Like deinstitutionalization, people will complain about losing a service option, albeit one shown ineffective and potentially exploitive. But at least the problem won’t get worse than it already is and thus more difficult. And we won’t be unnecessarily sentencing young people to lifelong segregation needlessly while we spend precious resources on facilities and their related expenses.
Are there other steps within the Pareto Principle that apply? I think there are at least two more as starters. One would be an extension of the non-admission policy toward people who leave the workshop for employment. In other words, if they lose their job, they cannot return to the workshop. And still another would be the phasing out of sub-minimum wage. I will blog further about these in my coming posts and talk more about how to phase out facilities. 
Taken together, we might find that prioritizing our strategies for change might make more sense than continuing a shotgun approach of just promoting everything that seems a bit better than a workshop, then hoping for the best. I’m afraid the evidence has come in on that approach, and it hasn’t worked. 
conversion segregation sheltered workshops

Discarding An Old Narrative: Shine a Light on Indignity

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Some 30 years ago, some new and innovative approaches were developed to help people with disabilities lead better lives. They involved ideas such as normalization, social inclusion, individualized planning, and supported employment and supported living. These concepts were all based on focusing on the individual and not the disability, and each brought new ways of providing support. As the techniques evolved, they got more efficient, and researchers started to document their effectiveness. Their results showed that the outcomes they produced were much better for people – more wages, good jobs, nice homes, and more friends, and they cost no more when implemented properly.
Fast forward to today. A cadre of professionals, but still a minority to be sure, remain committed to implementing these no-longer “new” ideas. Nearly everyone now knows the terms and supports their philosophy. But the talk and the walk are very different. By and large, most services remain stuck in the 1980s. I can walk into almost any community and find most adults with developmental disabilities living in group homes or even larger settings, attending workshops or day programs, and living lives of isolation. Few have jobs or a real home to call their own. Many earn less than minimum wage, if they work at all. We celebrate the minority who have achieved a better life, but too often selectively ignore the large majority who have not.
Occasionally, we do hear in the media about the incidents of institutional abuse, negligence, or workers earning pennies per hour while agency management make six-figure incomes. These cause outrage, and the response is usually to clean up the situation. We then try to tinker with a model that seems by its nature to invite this type of problem. This leads to statements like “our workshop is not like those dirty sweatshops, it’s clean,” or “we have 24-hour video surveillance in the residence..” Hmmm… 
But when are we going to examine the model in its full details? What we don’t hear can be just as disturbing: the adults who sit coloring because the “clean workshop” has little work; or the resident who sits on the couch because the staff just wants to watch TV. These are not headline events, but they are a slow drip of negligence because we know how to do better. I have come upon these kind of things far too often and too recent, and this type of living is unnecessary for anyone.
We are caught in an old narrative. It goes like this: People with disabilities need special places and special programs. They prefer each other’s company. They are too vulnerable to live in the community and are not really productive to be employable. This narrative was codified into law, and policy focused on building specialized facilities. Programs were developed and people were placed into them, based on their label and perceived functioning level. Professionals were trained, many times by entering the system as a staff person, and then learning by watching “how things work here.”
Discarding such a narrative and what it produced isn’t easy – it takes work. First, you have to produce an approach that is doable and based on evidence that it works. This we have done. But then you have to help people to understand the new narrative rationally, emotionally, and philosophically. Then -and this is the deepest challenge – you have to break down the existing codes, restructure the policies, and retrain the professionals, or hire new ones. This involves resetting expectations, and accepting that what we have, even though it’s better than nothing or something even more restrictive, isn’t good enough. The new narrative threatens the old and the economics it produces. Even if research says changing services is by far the better thing to do, people tend to discard or discount information that just doesn’t fit the narrative they have – a well-studied effect called the confirmation bias.
So, there are at least two basic things we must accomplish to change things:
1. Expose the flaws in the old narrative.
2. Continue to present a compelling new narrative.
So far, advocates have only been doing the second option. I’ve been told directly, it’s too disruptive to rock the boat right now. Too disruptive for whom? In my view, not rocking the boat has kept us from enabling any systemic change. Civil rights didn’t come just from talking about a new world of equality. Advocates also had to expose the indignities, inequality, and pervasive inhumanity that was going on every day, in everyday neighborhoods. It was sometimes blatant, and sometimes subtle, but always just as wrong. I welcome your comments.
employability school to work segregation social enterprise

Engineered Employment: An Inadequate Solution for Adult Joblessness and Student Transition

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Dale, come see our great recycling program! Check out our cleaning crew! We run a bakery that our special ed students all work at!

Over the past 30 plus years of providing consultation and training to agencies and schools on the employment of people with disabilities, I have visited employment programs in 49 states and evaluated many program “models.” Most of these revolved around one idea to solve unemployment in that region. This idea was usually based on a single business model – selling muffins, recycling trash (seen hundreds of these!), manufacturing something, producing crafts, running a cleaning business, and the like.

Generally, the agencies are quite proud of their progressiveness. They point out that people are doing real work for real wages. Some businesses even make money (although rare, and usually only because of subsidies). The even have progressive sounding terms for this – affirmative business, social entrepreneurism, or social enterprise. Labeling things to dress them up is something we are good at in disability services.

And, compared to a sheltered workshop or “day treatment,” these kind of engineered employment solutions look good on the surface. But they are deeply flawed on many levels.

When I was the executive director of an agency in the 1980s, I inherited a program that was a functioning restaurant. It purportedly prepared people to go into the food service field. Folks came from all over to tour the facilities and view our “innovative program.” However, my experience with the program was:
1. Only a few people we served were really interested in restaurant work. Fewer got sustainable jobs after their training.
2. The business demanded an enormous amount of our staff time and resources.
3. The local restaurants we were purporting to provide trained labor to also perceived the restaurant as subsidized competition, and rightly so.

Ultimately, I concluded it was mostly a major distraction from our mission of making good matches between all of our workers and businesses or market needs. I decided that if we were going to be involved in business start-ups, it would be those business models that come from the interests of people we served, who would own them themselves with our help. For the few people who wanted restaurant training, we would work with the community college to obtain culinary education or create training opportunities in the existing restaurants in our area.

Ultimately, I found that you have to solve unemployment using a method that was driven by job seeker skills and interests first, then building networks out to the local community to serve it. Engineered businesses wrongly use the reverse approach. They start with a business, presume most everyone they serve will be good at and enjoy the work, and then often compete with the very companies they then try to place people in, when outside placement is even a goal. In many, lifelong employment by people with disabilities is expected there. And so much energy is taken with making the business viable, there is little time left for considering what else people might be better off doing!

Imposing group employment on people to solve their lack of jobs is a generally poor strategy. Running agency-owned businesses distracts your focus on serving the needs of the labor market and focusing on individuals. It restricts employment to only those jobs you have managed to engineer – and too often these are stereotypical jobs like cleaning and recycling garbage. People with disabilities deserve better and broader options. We should not get caught up in our own ideas and models.

A recent example of this came to light in British Columbia, where students with disabilities were seen rummaging through garbage cans at school, in front of their non-disabled peers, to recycle as part of their “transition training.” It illustrates my point. See the article.

The only recent analysis on social enterprise I found was a 2007 field review by the Seedco Policy Center. They concluded: “…we found that non-profits driven to meet a ‘double bottom’ line for customers and clients have far more typically led to frustration and failure, drawing attention and resources away from the organization’s core work — and that even the oft-cited success stories are less cut-and-dried than they appear.” They found a large ultimate failure rate, and noted that non-profits, unlike real businesses, had much more difficulty “letting go.”

I know not all engineered models look like this Vancouver example. And in some low employment regions, engineered employment will look enticing. Many agencies work hard to develop these engineered jobs, and I think these programs are well-meaning. But that doesn’t mean they are a cost-effective use of our government resources. They still involve congregation of people with disabilities, limited choice, and a movement of time and funding away from your prime mission.

Thanks for reading. Feel free to post your comments! The link is below – 

segregation supported employment

What do People with Disabilities Want for Employment Services?

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The statements below are from a white paper produced from a March, 2011 Summit by leaders from the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, the National Youth Leadership Network, Self-Advocates Becoming Empowered, and allies. Including not only Summit proceedings, but a broad range of interviews besides, the authors “…believe that this report and the process that led to it was broadly inclusive and captured many voices typically left out of these discussions.”
Community Living and Employment:  
Whether we work in sheltered workshops, enclaves, or day habilitation centers, vocational segregation of us from people without disabilities does not count as community living. It is not gainful employment if we do not have the opportunity to make money at the same levels as other people who work in our community. We lose an important aspect of community life if we spend our time only around people with disabilities, in day habilitation centers, and are not able to be included in our broader communities. 
We must have opportunities to work in jobs as part of the general work force, among people who do not have disabilities. Opportunities for earning wages and benefits should be the same as everyone else. CMS funding should be used for supported employment and not be used for sheltered workshops or settings paying sub-minimum wage for people with disabilities. CMS community funding should not be used for any segregated settings, including day habilitation centers. 
Anything that segregates us from our communities is not community.
Keeping the Promise: Self Advocates Defining the Meaning of Community Living
minimum wage

Pennies for Pay Must End

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Recently, the Green Bay Press Gazette featured an article that reviewed the ongoing debate over the use of subminimum wages for people with disabilities. The publication found over 10,000 Wisconsin citizens with disabilities earn less than minimum wage, ranging as low as 2 cents per hour. The article also reviews a local sheltered workshop where 96% of workers are paid below minimum.

Readers of this blog know my position on this: A legal minimum wage should be for all citizens. For those individuals with disabilities who need support for their productivity, disability professionals must use current employment practices and technology to customize their job and their support. We should not solve hiring and productivity problems on the backs of those who can least afford it – workers with disabilities.

The argument for sub-minimum wage seems to revolve around the need for less-than-minimum-wage in order for people with disabilities to have access to employment, due to their perceived and sometimes actual lower productivity on certain work tasks. But the bigger issue is that the reason many people with disabilities are less productive when compared to a normed sample is that the work they are offered is poorly matched to their interests and capabilities, or they are not provided needed accommodations. Workers with disabilities aren’t always slower by 50%, 80%, or 90% on all work tasks – it depends on the task, the person, the job fit, and the job accommodations.
When there is a gap between performance needed and produced, the first solution is to re-analyze the job and the person’s capabilities and support needs, not reduce the pay. We should work to try to figure out how to obtain work supports and match job tasks so that the employer gets a productive worker. It is not a question of disability, it is a question of support and job matching.
What is interesting in the article are the comments of a local workshop director and some of the posted comments of the article. They express typical criticisms of those of us wanting to remove the sub-minimum wage barrier:

The stereotypes — including sweatshop-like conditions — “just aren’t true,” … pointing to… openness, clean working conditions and the fact that many employees have chosen to continue working for the organization for decades.

This story is about a group of liberals who want to do good but have no idea what harm will come from their inept actions. You really feel that unemploying this sector of the work force is a good idea? You would feel much better if these people were on benefits instead?

People aren’t being forced to work there … they have a choice.

You start raising the expected Wages, too?…….Expect Charity to disappear
Back away, Do-Gooders……….all you’re doing is feverishly paving the road to Hades

This illustrates some assumptions of many of those who manage, fund, or refer people to workshops – that it should be their choice and that without the small pay rate, there would be no employment. These are false assumptions. I discuss the choice argument in other posts. While I believe we need to stop placing people in workshops for a variety of reasons related to unnecessary segregation, I also think that the pay rate can be exploitive, and the work far too constrictive to menial work unrelated to people’s skills and interests.

There is no doubt that some individuals with disabilities are slower in certain tasks, depending on the task, the skills and the disability. Of course this statement is also generally true of all people. The thing about productivity in a sheltered workshop or enclave, or in a poorly matched or supported job, is that, one, it is largely confined to a limited scope of work, typically packaging, assembly, shipping, landscaping, cleaning or some other rather repetitive task. If you happen to be slow on these types of tasks, make too many mistakes, or just plain disinterested, then you will be judged as not ready for a real job. Two, these workplaces are not always the place for maximum creativity in job support, leading to a further performance drag on the worker.
Productivity is largely related to the match of skill and task, but it is also related to motivation, the sense of belonging, wages, social relationships, self-esteem, the assistance and training you get, and other factors. For example, some jobs require skills other than speed (e.g., accuracy, good interpersonal skills). Thus, the focus on work rate as the only criteria for wage determination can be inappropriate. Furthermore, the actual methods used for time sampling are often faulty. The conditions under which people are being timed as well as the work environment itself can be unnatural.
Mike might earn pennies a day for his slow pace assembling a business mailing, but at the YMCA where he welcomes customers and checks their membership cards, he might be at 100% productivity for the employer. That is, with a little help, he does the job asked. Success comes from liking the work, the people, and this makes him feel good. He also has the supports needed to succeed. Thus, he is motivated. And, he is good at what the employer needs.
This is real productivity. The law does not allow a disability professional to pass judgment on who is productive to earn the right to a job based on incomplete or invalid information. And nor should it allow anyone to determine that an individual is only qualified to earn pennies an hour. This disability system needs to figure out what a person wants to do, needs to do, and needs to have, to be productive. It means finding the right job match and giving the right supports. 

Productivity isn’t fixed. Nor is the setting in which it is assessed. Minimum wage should be the minimum – by definition, the lowest you can go. If there is a productivity gap for a particular employee with a disability, let us work with an employer to solve it in some way so that the cost does not come from the worker who is already likely to be living below the poverty level. Special wage certificates are an “easy out” and no real solution to unemployment and underemployment. And the irony is that these often “token wages” are applied to a group of people who are the most in need of income.
residential social enterprise

On Simulated Communities for People with Disabilities: From Agency Businesses to Gated Disability Neighborhoods

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Ah, vacation. I am sitting on a porch in a house in the Great Smoky Mountains, altitude about 4,000 feet, in just about near-perfect weather. My family and friends have enjoyed great food, good company, music, hiking and other pleasures. It makes me consider the nature and value of community. In the disability field, we talk about the community as if it were a single place where one lives, including its various surrounding people, businesses and social groups. But actually, there are multiple communities we all participate in and which sometimes move with us. 
Also, we are constantly evolving, building and deconstructing communities, depending on interests, needs, and locations. When I travel to a new place, like now, a few of my social communities actually come with me, such as friends, family, and my virtual networks. And I also might enter into new communities I discover here, as I bike, hike or play music. I view most of these communities as a significant part of my life. They enable me to interact with people I care about, work colleagues, advocacy groups whose causes I am involved in, or interest groups I enjoy.
One of the characteristics of our disability service system has been to congregate people based on their disability label or perceived need for services, in effect “creating community” for them. This is thought to be advantageous for cost efficiency, as well as in the interests of people with disabilities who are assumed to prefer to be with “their own kind.” But congregation has had several disastrous unintended consequences on the quality of their lives, particularly in terms of impoverishment of their participation in diverse communities. Most importantly, it has resulted in a segregated life experience for people with disabilities, as most still attend special classrooms or schools, live in separate housing – ranging from institutions/nursing homes to groups homes and work, or are “kept active” in separate facilities such workshops or therapy centers. Segregation in turn has had other effects that reduce the quality of life.
In this post, rather than detailing the horrific impact of segregation has meant for people, I want to focus on the misguided efforts some are now making to “correct” segregation. In my travels as a disability consultant, I have observed various initiatives that, in effect, try to simulate integrated communities for people with disabilities. This has included:
  • spending millions of dollars to clean up and rehabilitate segregated facilities such as institutions, nursing homes, or large group homes to be more safe and “home-like.”
  • attempting to create agency-run businesses within non-profit disability agencies, to primarily employ people with disabilities, but also including non-disabled workers as well.
  • “reverse-integrating” sheltered workshops by hiring some individuals without disabilities to work alongside the workers with disabilities, to make them more “business-like.”
  • building new enclosed neighborhoods, sometimes as gated developments, that would be “community housing” for individuals with disabilities.
All of these attempts, and many more, are well-intentioned efforts to either to reduce segregation or help correct existing bad conditions in segregated settings. But they are artificial solutions that are deeply flawed and only deflect from the real needs people have. The argument often is that these steps are closer to real community. Or that they are “better than” what exists now. But this misses the point. It’s like trying to frantically repair a ship doomed to sink. Why not get everyone off the ship and back to where they should be? We should just admit that the very idea of this particular ship was the actual problem.
Creating community is of course possible, but only when people come together for a real reason of interest, location, or shared value. Engineered communities (especially when membership revolves around on a life characteristic such as a disability condition or label) are not nearly as powerful or real as those that arise from natural sources (unless we are talking about advocacy). Artificially simulating community for people with disabilities, especially without their input and informed choice, produces outcomes that fall far short. After a while, conditions, failures, and faults become publicly exposed. We then try to fix the simulated community by making it nicer or better. That just tragically postpones the real and desperately needed solution. 
People with disabilities belong, first of all, in their real and already existing communities – all of them that apply – the “common unity” of location, work, passions, skills, families, religion, and so on. Where we need to focus our resources is to advocate, adjust, and/or support each community when it falls short in welcoming anyone, or preventing full participation, because of their differences.
segregation supported employment

Employment First: A Promising Hope, but at Risk of Being Watered Down

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Last month, I had the privilege of speaking at two statewide disability employment conferences, one in New York and one in Minnesota. These events focused on “Employment First.” This concept refers to having employment be the primary expected goal for working-age adults with disabilities in government-funded day services, and for those services to support that realization of that goal.

Those of you who regularly read this blog know that I have articulated the current sad state of segregation and non-work services being provided to the large majority of individuals currently in the disability system. Employment First represents an opportunity to reset priorities back to where they should be – providing people with meaningful and integrated work from the start. But it is important to recognize that this is not a simple problem with an easy prescription.

It is only after we understand the meaning and scope of the needed shift in expectations that we can begin to understand what Employment First really means and how it challenges our current system. The problem that continues to perpetuate a segregated work system is the fact that most individuals with disabilities newly entering the disability service system still continue to enter segregated facilities. About $0.80 of every state and federal rehabilitation dollar spent for day program and employment services in state developmental service systems across the US support segregated services.

Regarding Employment First policies, I believe it is not enough to have meetings, “consensus statements” or “white papers.” These may represent a fair start, but let’s not confuse talking with progress or outcomes. We need legislation, public policy, and funding to change significantly. Otherwise, we water down the promise of Employment First by only paying lip service, with few real consequences for inaction.

Here is the golden nugget that most states cannot bring themselves to – we need to publicly acknowledge that the segregated nature of much of the disability vocational training system to date has failed. It has not only failed to produce good job outcomes for people with disabilities, but also has acted at times as an obstacle to people with disabilities leading fulfilling lives. Facility-based sheltered work has been a barrier by adding stigma to its workers, paying predominantly sub-minimum wages, and wasting time and resources that could be spent in actual employment. In addition, service components of much of disability job training, such as intrusive behavior management, labeling, and other artifacts of the human services system, have created further barriers to job success.

Employment First coverUntil we stop placing people in segregated and/or non-work facilities, the likelihood of systems change, Employment First or not, will be small. I have written a manual that goes into this argument in more detail. It also details the steps needed to make Employment First a Reality. To learn more: https://trn-store.com/employment-first

minimum wage segregation

A Turkey Farm Lesson about Group Labor and Sub-Minimum Wage

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Not only is sub-minimum wages for workers with disabilities unfair, one of the effects of such wages and using group labor of people with disabilities is the dehumanizing impact it creates on the workers by those around them. I believe this leads to a higher risk of abuse and exploitation.
In April, 2011, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a lawsuit against Texas-based Hill Country Farms, alleging that the company subjected a group of 31 men with intellectual disabilities in Iowa  to severe abuse and discrimination for more than 21 years. The men, whose job was to eviscerate turkeys, were subjected to physical abuse and inhumane working and living conditions. The physical abuse including hitting and kicking the men and forcing them to carry heavy weights as punishment. They were also verbally abused and called ‘retarded’ and ‘dumbass.’ If this rings familiar to recent human rights violations at some institutions, you are right. Institutional life is not just about the size of the program, although larger programs tend to be more regimented; it’s also very much about the relationship between group residents and those around them.
The EEOC complaint alleges that that the owners and staffers of Henry’s Turkey denied the workers lawful wages, paying them only $65 a month for full-time work; restricted their freedom of movement; and forced them to live in deplorable and sub-standard living conditions. Documents were ‘contrived’ so that employees would be paid their monthly $65 regardless of hours worked.
This is clearly a case of incredible abuse and exploitation, and is shocking in its level for today’s world. How could such a thing happen? What hasn’t been widely reported is the history behind the development of this situation and some details of the residents living conditions in Iowa. The original owner of the company, T.H. Johnson, was a rancher in Texas. He started a turkey operation there and began using graduating students of the Abilene State School, which was then an institution for students with disabilities, as low-cost laborers in the sixties. In 1968, he was even award “National Employer of the Year” by the “National Association of Retarded Children.” In the early seventies, the company made an agreement with a turkey plant in Iowa to provide labor. A bunkhouse was used as the resident for the first 15 laborers with disabilities brought to Iowa from Texas. This number fluctuated between 20 and 60, but soon settled at about 30 residents with intellectual disabilities. It wasn’t until a 2009 inspection of the residents’ bunkhouse when conditions came to light. The inspection cited the main fire alarm disabled, fire exits blocked or padlocked, holes in the ceiling, bug infestations, mold – generally deplorable conditions. 
The idea of workers with disabilities as low-cost laborers stems from group employment models and the allowance of sub-minimum wage as applied to a group of people – those with disabilities. Certainly exploitation and abuse can happen anywhere, but something of this magnitude is rare. Group labor approaches and the ability to manipulate wages based on “productivity” simply invites an atmosphere where people can be taken advantage of in ways we have not seen in the US in fifty plus years. There is no reason to allow sub-minimum wages anymore; or group models of employment to solve high unemployment of a particular minority group. 
Let’s end the conditions that led to a run-down bunkhouse for workers who earn a $65 monthly wage for full time work. Now. 
employability employment first supported employment

Thoughts on Employment First: Don’t Water it Down!

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Employment First refers to a relatively new movement to change public policy for individuals with disabilities who receive publicly funded day services. Employment First begins as an effort to change the expectations people have about the ability of people with disabilities to work – in policy, in practice, and in person. It refers to having employment be the primary expected goal for working-age adults with disabilities in government-funded day services, and for those services to support that realization of that goal.

Employment First presents a great opportunity, but there is a real concern that new employment initiatives, while well-intentioned, will be developed incompletely and ultimately again will do little to change a largely segregated and entrenched vocational system. That would be a tragedy.

We must avoid having Employment First go through a process of misunderstood implementation, leading to an all-too familiar conclusion about new innovations that are perceived as being attempted and falling short, or “We tried that and it didn’t work…”

TRN has released a new manual on this topic that I authored. Most likely the most challenging point of this manual on Employment First is its position to publicly acknowledge that the segregated nature of much of the disability vocational training system to date has not only failed to produce good job outcomes for people with disabilities, but also has acted at times as an obstacle to people with disabilities leading fulfilling lives. Facility-based sheltered work has been a barrier by adding stigma to its workers, paying predominantly sub-minimum wages, and wasting time and resources that could be spent in actual employment. In addition, service components of much of disability job training, such as intrusive behavior management, labeling, and other artifacts of the human services system, have created further barriers to job success.

Politically, many agencies, including national associations, have tried to focus on growing integrated services as a strategy for change. One noted, “We believe that the best strategy …is to focus on developing more jobs, as well as the programs, services, and supports that people with I/DD need … The employment and services marketplace will evolve accordingly and unwanted employment options will fade from the scene.” (Arc of the US, 2011) Unfortunately, twenty years of employment outcome data has shown that this has not proven sufficient. Segregated facilities are entrenched and growing larger in the numbers of people served every day.

We need to acknowledge that this must change. This begins by recognizing that the segregated, facility-based approach will not simply fade away. There needs to be agency commitments to immediately end new referrals to segregated models and, secondly, put in place strategies to downsize facility-based models over a reasonable time span. These need to be part of Employment First.