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Quality Indicator #4: Employment of Individuals with Truly Significant Disabilities

The 1986 Amendments to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 included Title VI-C which designated supported employment as a program. However it was not until the 1992 Reauthorization of the Rehabilitation Act (P.L. 102-569) that the regulations made major changes to the eligibility provisions and included language that clearly stated that the programs was designed for people with the most significant disabilities. Supported employment was never intended to serve the typical vocational rehabilitation customer. Rather, this service option was created for those people who experience truly significant disabilities who traditionally were not able to obtain competitive employment through vocational rehabilitation services. P.L. 102-569 further describes customers of supported employment as those individuals who have obtained intermittent employment but have not been successful in maintaining competitive employment, and who need long term support to achieve competitive employment.

Supported employment service providers need to work with potential customers and rehabilitation counselors to ensure that the organization is marketing their service to the appropriate customers (Green & Brooke, 2001). Employment service organizations can analyze this quality indicator by determining who is accessing their services and reviewing the following questions

• What are the customers' primary and secondary disabilities?
• What are the customers' functional capabilities?
• What are the customers' prior work or service histories?
• What other characteristics have presented a barrier to employment for the customers?
• How do supported employment customers compare with those individuals accessing other rehabilitation services?

These indicators should provide a clear and concise picture of the customers that is being served through supported employment services. The service provider needs to match up these results with the federal regulations to determine if they are truly serving individuals with significant disabilities, for whom the services are intended.