Category segregation supported employment

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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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…

Employment services are included in the integration mandate of the ADA! This recent ruling in Oregon by United States Magistrate Judge Janice Stewart is a huge landmark decision. It should cheer advocates who are working to slow and eventually end the growing numbers of people with disabilities needlessly spending their days in segregated sheltered workshops.

Similar  to many states, most Oregonians with developmental disabilities in vocational services work in sheltered workshops, even though most would prefer to work in a real job. Each year, more are referred to these facilities. Sadly, this includes graduating students with disabilities – who should never need to see the inside of a workshop. This year a lawsuit spearheaded by Disability Rights Oregon was brought on behalf of 2300 individuals with disabilities in that state being needlessly kept away from real job opportunities. The suit charges that the state is violating the ADA by not providing employment services to people with disabilities in the most integrated settings appropriate. Now, the judge in the case has ruled that the plaintiffs can make such a claim under the ADA.

A legal basis for the suit was a previous Supreme Court decision known as Olmstead. Olmstead found that Title II of the ADA requires states to offer services in the most integrated setting possible, including shifting programs from segregated to integrated settings. Up to now, litigation under Olmstead has focused on supporting people in residential institutions to move to community settings. This has been followed by suits about other congregate settings such as nursing homes that claim to be community-based, but really serve as institutions, unnecessarily segregated people as well. Most recently, advocates have used Olmstead to challenge waiting lists and even state budget cuts. But this case is the first specific ruling regarding employment services and the integration mandate of the ADA.

In response to the suit, Oregon filed a Motion to Dismiss the case, saying that employment claims cannot be made under Title II of the ADA and that Olmstead does not apply to employment services. In her ruling, Judge Stewart stated “…this case does not involve ’employment,’ but instead involves the state’s provision (or failure to provide) ‘integrated employment services, including supported employment programs.'” The Judge thus affirmed that employment services is included in the integration referred to in the ADA, and gave the Plaintiffs time to file an amended complaint due to wording problems in the complaint, so further rulings are still to come on the case.

Oregon is just the tip of an iceberg. The state currently spends $30 million a year for individuals with disabilities to be in  sheltered workshops – the lion’s hare of state vocational service dollars. With few exceptions, this is also true nationally. In NY, some estimates are close to a billion dollars spent for segregated day services. Yet, a 2010 study by Oregon’s own agency notes that cumulative costs generated by sheltered employees may be as much as three times higher than the cumulative costs generated by supported employees – $19,388 versus $6,618.”

Even though every state provides supported employment, on average these services represent only one of every five people served. Vastly more money is spent on segregation than on integration. And so far, most vocational service providers have responded by circling the wagons to protect their facilities. Most states do not even have an Olmstead plan related to phasing in more integrated employment services. Very few have any practical plan to reduce the population in sheltered workshops in a thoughtful way over time. Instead, there are vague goals of improving employment outcomes and little supporting funding. It seems that state money just keeps flowing to how and where it was spent previously, so real change never comes.

So maybe the time has finally arrived for us all to recognize the injustice of this. And apparently, it has taken a lawsuit to jump-start it. I say it’s about time.

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.

Until 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