Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation

The goal of this qualitative study was to explore and present the perspectives of unemployed and employed individuals with psychiatric disabilities on the benefits and costs of work. The participants in this study were enrolled in a supported employment program that provided assistance in weighing the pros and cons of work, locating employment based on personal choice, and maintaining competitive jobs through unlimited support. At the 12th month of participation in the job program, 89 people completed the Stages of Change Interview for Seeking Competitive Employment. For 59 unemployed participants, results suggested 47 distinct themes that were categorized into 5 conceptual frameworks: financial, emotional, cognitive, behavioral, and interpersonal. For 30 employed participants, results suggested 25 distinct themes that were categorized into the same 5 conceptual frameworks. Implications for future research will be discussed.

The Ticket-to-Work (TTW) program is designed to promote SSA beneficiaries' return to work. Unfortunately, very few SSA beneficiaries have taken advantage of this latest work incentive program. The current project evaluates the effectiveness of an assertive outreach effort to increase TTW enrollment and use of the One-Stop Career Center System by SSA beneficiaries in a densely populated, urban county within New Jersey. The results indicate that an assertive outreach effort alone will not resolve the low enrollment rate within the TTW program. Implications for the SSA TTW program and the One-Stop System are discussed.

This study explores whether the passage of Section 21 of the Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1992 is associated with an increased publication of articles on diversity topics in four mainstream rehabilitation journals to understand the correlation between the passage of this legislation and publication behavior among rehabilitation academics. The findings revealed that twice as many diversity-related articles were published after the passage of Section 21 of the 1992 Rehabilitation Act Amendments as before. Diversity themes among articles published before Section 21 differed from those published after its passage.

This study investigated the costs of supported employment in Wisconsin over a four-year period (FY 2002 – FY2005). Findings suggest that the average annual per capita cost incurred by Vocational Rehabilitation rose 61.7% not influenced by the supported employees' disabling condition or its severity.

The Attitudes toward Employment of Psychiatric Disability scale (ATEP) was developed to assess employer attitudes toward employing people with psychiatric disability. In total, 358 employers representing fourteen Japanese industries were surveyed by questionnaire to assess their attitudes in four major areas: employer motivation, activity limitation, prejudice and fear, and attention distribution. The results were categorized according to six employment sectors derived from the fourteen classes of the Japan Standard Industrial Classification [22]. Service sector employers faced activity limitation due to employees with psychiatric disability less than did employers in the construction and manufacturing sectors. As well, employers in the wholesale, retail trade, and food and beverage sectors faced less activity limitation than did employers in the manufacturing sector. Employers between sixty-and-seventy years of age faced more activity limitation than did those between thirty-and-forty years old. Employer motivation for employing people with psychiatric disability correlates with fear, prejudice, and prior experiences employing those with psychiatric disability. However, these factors only partially explain employer motivation. The prospect that these findings might assist employers is discussed in this article.

This paper describes how supported employment programs are part a set of comprehensive employment programs that began with the rehabilitation program in 1920. It describes a survey of the directors of supported employment programs in 24 service providers in Maryland (85 percent response rate). Two important conclusions were drawn. First, the individuals who are primarily responsible for the provision of supported employment services believe that improvement is needed to find more jobs, higher paying jobs, and jobs with more weekly hours for supported employees. Second, They acknowledged that a number of issues must be resolved. Transportation must be improved, particularly to jobs available during the evenings and weekends. Improved methods of funding should developed that more accurately support the individual service needs of diverse consumers, and with financial incentives to encourage both efficiency and effectiveness. All respondents agreed that meaningful data systems should be developed that would identify successes, failures, and problems, and most respondents believed that the system should identify the performance of each service provider.