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Benevolent Ableism: When Help Isn’t Helping

daledileo 1 Comment

If you are unfamiliar with the term “ableism”, it is a word, much like racism, that describes a societal condition that leads to the widespread discrimination and segregation, but in this case focused on those with a disability label.

If ableism describes the culture that subjects people with disabilities to rejection, how do we analyze a service system that tries to help people, but in doing so, ends up reinforcing ablistic values of the culture? This is something I call “benevolent ableism.” when well-meaning people set up programs or services that also segregate or send messages of stigma due to using disability as the defining core of the services, rather than such things as individualism, quality of life, informed choice, and inclusion.

Historically, we have seen benevolent ableism in the development of sheltered workshops, group homes, and day activity programs, which were touted as the alternatives to institutionalization, which itself was considered a benevolent service of its time. Unfortunately, all these models, while offering an option instead of something worse, still kept people from experiencing the kind of life they deserve.

The challenge of benevolent ableism is that those who perpetuate it are well-meaning, caring folks who feel their actions are improving the lives of people with disabilities. But, unfortunately, efforts to help do not automatically equal actual improvement of lives. What are the problems?

1. Helpers Have More Power than their Recipients
Those who help hold all the cards; that is, disability service professionals and not those in need of support, mange the funding, call the shots and make the rules.

2. Helping Programs Arise from Prevailing Disability Service Fashions
Various disability service models have come in vogue over the years, and what is popular often determines what form the help will take. Sometimes what is popular has been poorly researched, if studied at all, and not held to any level of accountability. For example, studies have produced no evidence that time spent in sheltered workshops helps the employability of people with disabilities. In fact, the opposite is true.

3. Helpers Can Succumb to a Rescue Mentality
Those who help, regardless of how well-intentioned their motives, can easily take on the role of savior and protector against all others. This dampens their ability to hear genuine criticism, insulates their approach, and at the same time, places the people being assisted as helpless without their rescuer. The rescuer will often have the individual being helped follow a path that leads to dependency rather that self-sufficiency.

In the end, benevolent ableism is often at the root of what is keeping those who mange models that segregate and isolate people with disabilities from changing what is obsolete. The rescue mentality, the resistance to innovation, and the self-serving “we know what’s best” is ultimately preventing people with disabilities from more individualized supports that could lead to more inclusive lives in our communities.

If the disability field is to support the quality of life for people, we must realize that the concept “quality of life” can be a very elusive and varied goal for each individual. We should all, including those of us who are advocates for change in the existing system, have an openness to hear views that challenge our thinking. After all, if we are to escape benevolent ableism, we could all use a little more humility in our efforts to help.

conversion

Perpetual Planning Syndrome: Don’t Confuse the Plan with the Action

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How often do we see it when we look back at our work year? Task forces created, planning groups assigned, attending meeting after meeting, writing goals and objectives, action plans, giving assignments, and then… and then… We look back, and then look around, and we notice that things are not really that different. It’s the Perpetual Planning Syndrome.

Planning, with all its complexities, still has one purpose. And that is to make the things we DO – the actions we take – for ourselves, our agencies, and others, more efficient, effective and meaningful. That’s because haphazard actions to try to change or create new services can lead to unintentional outcomes that can be wasteful or even harmful.

In fact, the greater the complexity of the action, and the more significant its impact, the more thoughtful planning is needed. For example, transforming an agency from a facility-based model to a customized community-based approach requires thought and sensitivity. You should have clear strategies for engaging stakeholders, stabilizing funding, building your service capacity, and downsizing your reliance on a facility. But should a clear plan take endless meetings and years to accomplish? Not at all.

You don’t need to define every aspect of every possible situation to evolve a service. And a main reason is that each step taken toward your goal will lead to new information. In addition, you will likely experience new and different circumstances than what you anticipated. The longer the timeline goes out, the less valid will be the strategies you are making plans for now.

To start, always have a clear idea of what your ideal end point will look like – this is important so that you just don’t keep chasing new ideas because it’s the latest hot idea. Know your vision then figure out what initial steps you need to take within the first 6 to 12 months that will get you committed to the real innovation and change that meets your mission. Once you accomplish these, review your end goal to be sure it looks the same, and then figure out where you need to go next, based on what you learned and where you are now. Get some advice from people outside your frame of reference, who can dispassionately tell you what is working and what isn’t.

By the same token, this is true on an individual level. For example, if career planning and the Discovery Process does not lead to a quality job for someone, then all the strategizing has been besides the point. Don’t confuse the goal for the tools you use to help get you there. Doing Discovery is not a goal. You are no closer to a job with a Career Plan, unless it is actually used to find a good job match.

The goal is a job, not a plan. Or, for an agency, the goal are people in good jobs and not workshops. Making a plan does not get you started; it’s only a preliminary road map. What gets you started are taking the actions you’ve thought about and then making successful outcomes. Time is important. Many people with disabilities have spent lifetimes without opportunities to experience life in the way most of us take for granted. Excessive planning wastes time, and lives are wasted while professionals meet.

Yes, a road map is useful to get you to where you want to go efficiently, but it’s taking the actual steps that count.

employment first marketing and job development supported employment

How Should Job Developers Spend Their Time?

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The link mentioned at the end of this video
is in the yellow block on the right at the TRN Web Site.

 

social enterprise supported employment

Agency-Owned Social Enterprises: Is It Draining Resources for Employment of People with Disabilities?

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Come down to our ice cream shop! Your patronage supports jobs for the people with disabilities who work here!
Hmmm. The idea of social enterprise is a wonderful concept. Having a business that incorporates diversity and funnels its profits into social causes, including supporting people with disabilities, has much potential. But here’s the problem. Agencies that are charged with getting people community employment are using the concept as a systems model to be replicated as a significant part of their solution to unemployment. This has turned into a bit of a sideshow.
Three years ago, I wrote a blog post that took a critical look at the growing trend in social enterprises as a solution by agencies for the unemployment of people with disabilities. I noted a number of major concerns with such approaches, and I used the term “engineered employment” to describe them.
After recently visiting a number of agencies that were in the process of converting their facility-based services to “community employment,” I have found nearly all of them have been struggling to enhance their job services. But what they are also spending a great deal of time, money, and resources doing is developing their agency-owned businesses – selling muffins, snacks, shredding, recycling, art studios, cafes, farms, ice cream shops, and so on. And then they tout these as community employment success stories. From my observations, it’s easy to see why agencies will prefer this path rather than direct job placement. 
For example, “social enterprise” is an impressive cutting-edge term. It can be traced to European worker cooperatives in the early 90s that provided work for people with disabilities. It has a certain allure. Secondly, setting up a business can be an enjoyable and satisfying challenge, especially when you have a grant that will fund it. Third, it’s a nice thing to show off to families and visitors – there is a central location and it is easy to understand. Fourth, often the workers there are thrilled to be out of a workshop. And it can demonstrate the capacity of a worker with a disability in a community work setting.
But analyze this closer. What are the real outcomes and costs? And given the deplorable state of segregation and high unemployment of people with disabilities, is this where our focus should be? 
While I think there is a place for social enterprise, I think there are real risks in human service agencies developing them. And here is why: 
It is a formidable challenge to develop a quality job placement program. You need to do good hiring, quality training, develop career assessment practices, employer engagement strategies, and have effective job support strategies. From experience, I can tell you that this takes a lot of resources, work and a laser focus. But the payoff is huge. You can find well-matched jobs for high numbers of people with whatever job challenges they possess, once you have a flexible and competent system in place. 
But if you are running a business, or worse, several businesses, where are your energies? They are diluted with maintaining and subsidizing one or several business models that are providing work that may or may not be of interest for a very small number of individuals. This is not to say that all micro-enterprises are to be avoided. Self-owned businesses are a reasonable job solution for the generally small numbers of individuals who have a passion for a particular business. But this must evolve from the individual, and not the agency thrusting it on the individual.
Non-profit human services, by necessity, must be lean and highly targeted to their mission. Service designs must add significant value and offer individualization to the people you serve, and not just add value to the reputation of the agency.  Unfortunately, social enterprises rarely add enough direct value for the effort an employment services agency must put in. They also often require ongoing subsidies, using resources that should be going to job placement. And they offer “fixed job types” that are not grown from personal choice. Finally, the expertise of most human services management is not geared to business profitability, which social enterprises still require.
If you are running a business in your agency for the purpose of employing people with disabilities, consider these questions:
  • Ask yourself if your enterprise can be quickly spun off and survive on its own? 
  • Ask if there are workers with a real passion for that work – not just those who were placed there and have come to be comfortable? 
  • Ask what the costs will be per the number of individuals served? 
  • Ask if this business is competing with other employers in the community – the very people you are seeking to act as a resource to? 
  • Are there really insolvable obstacles such that the employees of that business cannot be employed elsewhere in the community
  • And if there are still good reasons to develop or maintain a social enterprise, are you willing to let the workers own the business, rather than the agency?

If one of your goals is to provide community employment, do not dilute your mission with an enterprise that will “engineer jobs” that haven’t grown out of personalized career assessment or discovery. Funders and policymakers need to stop funding these efforts with seed money that should go to job developers and employment consultants. Disability services have access to a relatively fixed pool of resources, folks. And 4 out of 5 people of working age with significant disabilities aren’t in community jobs. When you pull money away from your main mission, you better have some innovation in mind that will eventually produce job outcomes at least as good as customized job placement. 

Right now, and I have looked closely at several, I cannot find any in social enterprise.
minimum wage sheltered workshops supported employment

Sub-Minimum Wage Battle Heating Up

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The continuing controversy regarding using sub-minimum wage for workers with disabilities (using special worker certificates under Section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act) rages on. Use of this provision since 1938 has led to far too many examples of exploitation, artificially lowered wages, and poor employment outcomes. It needs to be phased out; review some of my previous postings on this issue.

Recent developments have cast new light on the issue and energized advocates trying to end the practice. Last February, 2014, President Obama issued an Executive Order that raises to $10.10 the hourly minimum wage paid for work performed by parties who contract with the Federal Government, including workers with disabilities. According to the Order, raising the pay of low-wage workers increases their morale and the productivity and quality of their work, lowers turnover and its accompanying costs, and reduces supervisory costs.

Photo credit: APSE

Yet, at the same time, SourceAmerica, formerly known as NISH, as the agency responsible for distributing government contracts to non-profits, continues to routinely award such contracts to many non-profits that pay workers with disabilities less than minimum wage. Indeed, it has even lobbied against the phasing out of Section 14(c). This recently lead to a very public protest of SourceAmerica headquarters by a collaboration of national advocacy organizations, including APSE, the National Federation of the Blind, the National Council on Independent Living, ADAPT, Little People of America, and TASH.

Finally, bi-partisan support continues to grow for US House Bill H.R. 831, The Fair Wages for Workers with Disabilities Act. Now with 96 co-sponsors (as of August, 2014), the bill would end issuing any new special wage certificates by the Department of Labor. It also phases out existing certificates, giving for-profits one year until their certificate is revoked; public entities have two years; and private non-profit vocational providers using sub-minimum wage will have 3 years to transition to integrated job placements at commensurate wages. At that time, Section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act will also be repealed.

Over 2700 existing certificates are being used across the US currently. Predictably the outcry from most in reaction to the pending legislation has been dire predictions of layoffs, closures, and the spectra of people having nowhere to go or nothing to do. And while this could actually happen, it could only occur if those providers elect to do nothing about modernizing their services over the phaseout. In fact, there are many other agencies that exist that serve the same individuals with the same kinds of support needs, and do so without using sub-minimum wage. A good deal of evidence supports the ending of this antiquated practice.

It’s time to make US wage policy consistent and inclusive of all people, including workers with disabilities.

employment first segregation supported employment sheltered workshops

How to Evaluate Employment First Policies

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Over the last few years, the Employment First (EF) movement has taken off in nearly every state and several Canadian provinces. The clear intent of an EF movement is to make an individual, integrated, paid job the first option for individuals with disabilities receiving day services.

This is no easy task for a service system that relies on segregated facilities. The context is that only 21 to 23% of people served in day services are currently employed in the community. A good number of those individuals are in group employment settings such as enclaves and crews. Most individuals with disabilities of working age find themselves in sheltered workshops, or non-work community day programs.

In addition, there remains a steady reliance on sub-minimum wages in both sheltered workshop placements as well as in some supported employment services.

For EF to succeed, it must not only change expectations about individuals with disabilities and employment; it must fulfill those expectations with results. The devil is in defining what those outcomes should look like. Having now worked in numerous states and provinces struggling with implementing or beginning an EF approach to services, here are some priorities about what success should look like, and how to overcome some of the obstacles traditional services present:

Goals

1. Focus outcomes on growing the percentage served in integrated employment. Track it agency by agency publicly.

It is not enough to measure the number of new placements made since implementing EF. You also must expect a decline in facility-based workshops and non-work programs at the same time. Ultimately, systems change should be reflected in a greater ratio of people in individualized integrated work versus workshop/non-work programs. Citing greater numbers of placements has little meaning when the numbers served in the day system itself are growing, sometimes at a greater rate than the rate of increase in employment.

2. Reduce reliance on sub-minimum wage. Track it agency by agency publicly.

Using sub-minimum wage to solve productivity issues in employment is unnecessary and a shortcut that avoids using better job matching, accommodation, training and other support strategies. It also has been shown to open people up to exploitation, and causes a continuation of impoverishing already marginalized people.

3. Make sure transitioning students and those on wait lists focus on immediate job placement and support.

Letting young people and others enter an obsolete system that has caused a movement toward EF is unconscionable. In public policy, one should never needlessly inflate a system you are trying to devolve.

Overcoming Obstacles

1. Stop using the workshop as a safety net.

Having people re-enter a facility perpetuates a continued reliance on segregated services during non-work or non-employment periods, when the focus should be on re-employment, community job skill training, career development or seeking greater hours.

2. Freeze refilling empty workshop “slots” due to job placements from the wait list, new referrals and school graduates.

Without ending workshop referrals, workshops will continue to segregate and serve individuals needlessly, despite clear evidence of poorer outcomes for the individual and lower cost-benefits to the taxpayer.

3. Stop replacing workshops with non-work day programs, perpetuating labor market exclusion.

When you define the problem as simply closing workshops, you end up with a lot of people volunteering, shopping or hanging out. This is neither the goal nor a solution to segregated employment.

~
EF has caused great fanfare in many places, and we have seen a number of pronouncements and proclamations. But will we see the system actually change its outcomes? Let me know what you are seeing in your part of the world. Let’s not be disappointed with the opportunity EF represents…

sheltered workshops supported employment

Finally! A Civil Rights Breakthrough

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 The following is a guest post by my colleague Bob Lawhead.
– Dale

On April 8, 2014 the U.S. Department of Justice announced “a landmark settlement agreement between the United States and the state of Rhode Island, vindicating the civil rights of approximately 3,250 individuals across the state with intellectual or developmental disabilities (I/DD).” This case constitutes the nation’s first statewide settlement involving the unnecessary segregation of people with disabilities in segregated sheltered workshops and day facilities, in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.  It is well known that these conditions exist in every state of the union and in the District of Columbia. 

Programs continue to segregate people, seemingly justifying the continuation of inaccessible publicly-funded recreation centers and programs.  Sheltered workshops and segregated day activity centers continue to keep people in perpetual slavery without the benefit that comes from a real job for real pay. These examples are most certainly “separate” but have never been “equal” to the public educational, recreational and employment programs currently in existence for the “typical” population.
According to the New York Times (Editorial, April 11, 2014) “Americans with intellectual and developmental disabilities historically have been shuttled far from society’s mainstream into segregated lives and workplace serfdom, earning wages as low as pennies per hour for the most repetitive and menial jobs. The Supreme Court in 1999 pronounced this kind of treatment a civil rights violation under the Americans with Disabilities Act, but abuse and isolation from society have continued to this day. The need to end the economic servitude and social exile of people with disabilities has long been clear. The Providence agreement is a promising but overdue starting point.”
Change driven by a response to a Department of Justice civil rights complaint can cost a state much more than taking the initiative to develop an Employment First policy. Additionally, the individual states should want to avoid the burden of Rhode Island’s ten years of supervision by the Department of Justice. Public policy makers at the state level must move rapidly to proactively build integrated employment opportunities for their citizens with disabilities. According to the DOJ’s Ms. Samuels, “Unnecessary segregation of people with disabilities is harmful to people with disabilities and to our communities. We cannot wait another day to change. And we won’t.”
We must move forward to correct the injustice of state-sponsored segregation for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Professionals currently understand how to provide effective supports to people who desire employment. Research tells us that integrated employment options actually cost less than ongoing segregation during the day. Most importantly, people and their families are telling us in increasing numbers that they want to take their place in the regular workforce. It’s time, it’s right, let’s go for it!

Bob Lawhead serves as CEO of Community Link in Colorado. He is Public Policy Chair for the Colorado Association of People Supporting Employment First (CO-APSE) and Co-Chairs the National Association of People Supporting Employment First (APSE) Public Policy Committee. Bob also serves as the Colorado Project SEARCH Statewide Director, is a member of the TASH Employment Committee and is an advisor to Self-Advocates Becoming Empowered (SABE) of Boulder County.

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choice segregation

Thoughts on Group Service Models for People with Disabilities

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groups
In my speaking and writing, I often tout the need for services to be individualized, and take issue with the congregate models we generally see from agencies and schools in the forms of group homes, day programs, and classrooms. Often, there is pushback from families and providers. I frequently hear:
– “What’s wrong with letting people socialize with each other?”
– “It’s their choice to be with each other.”
– “I’m
[Jewish, Italian, African-American, etc.] and [live, work, play] with people with my same label.”
Good points, but these arguments miss the mark. They represent a kind of binary thinking (disability groups are bad/good) that is all too common. They oversimplify social grouping, which is a sophisticated sociological phenomena. Understanding how groups function is a key to successful individual community life as well as personal self-worth. 
Groups can provide important social cohesion. This can be very positive for when an individual wants to validate his or her social identity, or share experiences with people who have some commonality. For a repressed minority group, it can be particularly important. A person can establish self-identity and take pride in it. In-group members relate with others who have shared experiences and cultural expression. Group members can form a basis for friendship, and advocacy of the shared commonality. Indeed, many people who are deaf, or who have dwarfism, for example, express strong preferences about living among others with the same life situation for a variety of reasons. And peer support groups for persons with mental illness have been shown to be helpful for group members.
But the difference on making an educated decision to voluntarily join a group for social cohesion, support, or advocacy, versus having a group experience imposed on you is huge, especially in regards to individuals with disabilities. People benefit from having a range of social experiences and participating in groups defined by different gathering reasons, and then being able to make educated choices about how they want to experience their communities. 
There is also an important social perception issue related to disenfranchised groups in which the group members are subject to negative stereotypes. What happens is that when an individual is seen as part of a group, the group commonality becomes prominent and defining. This leads to sociological issues when the commonality is not particularly valued, including prejudice and bias, intergroup hostility, and discrimination.
Group definition plays out in the context of how providers organize services. If you have a certain “functioning level,” or a label such as autism, behavior problem, intellectual disability, etc., your service experience will likely be more defined by that characteristic, rather than by your personal life needs (job, home, etc.). While a “treating-the-problem approach” is common in a medical model, it produces a severely limiting life experience for someone with a disability. They become “boxed in” by perceived and potentially misunderstood disability and support needs in terms of employment, housing, recreation, and more. Not only that, but individuals with disabilities often find themselves surrounded by others with the same disability or “level of function,” limiting access to others who might mentor, model, or perform at a higher level.
Fully understanding how to make good decisions about what groups to be a part of, in what context, and for how much of one’s life is a big decision people must make. Whom do I live with, what kind of work do I do, whom do I have fun with are major questions for us all. What professionals shouldn’t do, though, is track people into pre-made groups as answers to these questions based on their disability label. This ultimately limits the answers to those models that disability professionals have artificially created. 
So, consider the kinds of questions we ask:
  • It’s not: What disability work crew you want to join?; It’s: What kind of job do you prefer?
  • It’s not: What group home you want?; It’s: How do you want to live and with whom? 
  • It’s not: Do you want to go to the mall with other people from your residential placement?; It’s: What do you want to do for fun and with whom?

And remember, if all your previous experiences have been defined by group homes, workshops, crews and enclaves, and all your friendships have developed from group home co-residents placed by others, then saying your current situation is your “preference” is really not choosing at all. When someone understandably selects the only thing they have known, then we have failed to support him or her in understanding all the possibilities.

marketing and job development supported employment

Overcoming the Multi-Tasking Bias of Employers in Hiring

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In my previous post, commenters noted the benefits of my proposed supported employment process of Plan-Match-Support, but worried about a commonly reported hiring issue – the preference of employers to hire a person who can do multiple tasks. This perception can throw a roadblock into hiring a worker with a disability who might be considered capable of completing fewer kinds of tasks than others.
Let’s analyze the situation closely. First, it’s important to acknowledge that we have no research evidence on employer hiring preferences when workers with disabilities are in the equation. We have only studies of general employer attitudes toward hiring people with disabilities, and the anecdotal reports of job developers.
Unfortunately, this means that our understanding of employer thinking here is weak. It also means that if a job developer hears an employer say, “No thanks, I have a candidate who can perform more tasks,” we have no way of knowing how that actual job development process was performed to that point. Nor do we know how the job developer reacted. We also don’t know whether the employer has been educated about a specific job applicant with a disability, or whether the employer has had previous experience with workers with disabilities.
Why are these factors so important? Simply saying employers prefer multi-task-capable applicants oversimplifies the issue. Everyone would prefer Superman over Clark Kent in theory, unless you happen to just need a good reporter. For example, several research articles have found that employers who had previous positive experiences with workers with severe disabilities actually reported more favorable attitudes toward hiring individuals with severe disabilities in the workplace, despite any comparisons to multi-tasking candidates.
The comfort level with the job developer, and his or her credibility, also can influence decision-making. And most importantly, the employer personally meeting and assessing the skills of the job applicant with the disability can be crucial in overcoming bias, rather than considering a pitch about a “theoretical” applicant with a disability (thus increasing the probability of a discriminatory stereotype). And finally, the notion that workers with disabilities can’t expand their skill repertoire with training, accommodation, and support is wrong.
Further, the notion of multi-tasking actually can be detrimental to business performance. Recent studies of workers performing numerous tasks found that all performance suffers when trying to do too many things, not to mention increasing everyone’s stress level.
So, yes, the multi-task hiring preference can present job development issues, depending on the employers’ experiences (or lack of) and bias. But it can be mitigated by how the job development process occurs, and how well we educate employers about real productivity, the benefits of a diverse workforce, and the process of talent matching, a concept I will talk about in a future post.
The reality is that when workers with disabilities are well-matched to tasks that need completing, those tasks are completed reliably and productively. This is the most salient factor in hiring, whether those tasks represent all the business tasks or not. And there are many other non-task contributions workers with disabilities make to the workplace as well. How well we develop our employer engagement so that we overcome any multi-task hiring bias is key.
supported employment

Moving Beyond “Place, then Train”

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When supported employment first challenged the status quo of sheltered work over 25 years ago, the mantra was that it represented a shift in thinking. It was a movement away from Train and Place to its opposite, Place, then Train. That pithy quote helped to convey and crystallize the philosophical evolution taking place. Waiting to place someone until he or she is ready, based on training in a sheltered workshop, was just not working. For one thing, it took way too long for those few that managed to even get jobs. Researcher Tom Bellamy estimated that, based on average placement rates at the time, it would take over 55 years for someone to have a real job opportunity.

But in today’s world, Place, then Train has its own shortcomings. For too long, employment professionals have worked to find any available job opening, put job seekers in there, and then try to train for all expected tasks. This approach is not only over-simplified, it causes poor quality work outcomes. While getting any job was an improvement over a life of segregated work, it still too often missed the mark for good wages, social inclusion, longevity, and personal satisfaction.
 
So where should we go from Place, then Train? Something more like Plan, Match and Support. Still simplified, to be sure, but this is a more sophisticated take on job success. Jobs for people with employment challenges need to be customized to fit their skills, interests, and needs. And employers need workers who meet their task needs, fit in socially, and are motivated. Simply put, this requires individualization that includes all three components. 
Plan has two elements. It refers to the preparation required for a good job match that focuses on the two key customers, job seekers and employers. Career Planning for a job seeker means vocational assessment, using situational and and natural environments, and developing such things as self-representation skills, job experiences, portfolios, visual resumes, and interview skills. Employer Planning begins with employer research, and involves various strategies of employer engagement, leading to networking, and then very specialized job development for customized tasks and settings.
Match and Support take the place of Placement and Training. Placement implies something we do to people, rather than assisting workers with disabilities to be hired successfully. Matching is a more facilitative approach. Like a good headhunter or dating service, you want to bring together people and workplaces where there is a good fit, then help make the magic happen by negotiating a Job Match. This includes job analysis, customization of tasks, and helping arrange accommodations and other needs. Once a job has been brokered, workplace Support and training strategies focuses on natural supports and building co-worker relationships to facilitate learning and assistance from within the work environment. This is quite different from traditional job coaching. Instead, it involves utilizing employment specialists to facilitate training, rather than being the sole source of instruction.
When presenting this approach, there are often a range of worries from staff, including the time required to do the planning. And yes, in the real world, shortcuts and priorities often must happen. But the level of planning accomplished relates to both the probability of success and level of quality. In a future blog post, I will discuss the ways to prioritize and build teamwork such that we don’t sacrifice quality and revert back to Place and Train, because that too often turns into Place and Pray, which is no way to ensure high rates of job success.