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InfoUse
2560 Ninth Street, Suite 216
Berkeley, CA 94710
510-549-6520
December,
1999
Final
Performance Report
Choice Enhancement and Empowerment Project
Choice Enhancement and Empowerment Project (CEEP)
Grant Number: H235D30024
Center for Independent Living
2539 Telegraph Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94704
510-841-4776
The Choice Enhancement and Empowerment Project (CEEP) targeted the approximately 60,000 persons with severe disabilities residing in Alameda and San Francisco Counties, particularly those from ethnic minority communities and people with mental disabilities. CEEP was one of seven Choice Demonstration Projects funded by the Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA). CEEP was designed to empower people with disabilities to make vocational choices and to expand the scope of vocational rehabilitation opportunities available to people with disabilities.
To initiate services, CEEP participants attended a group orientation session, and met with a counselor to complete the intake process and begin work on a written rehabilitation plan. Upon completion of an approved plan, participants made purchases of training, equipment, job placement, and other services.
During its six-year duration, the project served 494 participants. Overall, 60% of CEEP consumers achieved or made substantial progress toward their vocational goals. Of successful consumers, 32% reported self-employment, 25% reported employment in a job, and 43% reported that they were empowered and had made substantial progress toward their vocational goals. Consistent with its goals, CEEP served a high percentage of ethnic and cultural minorities: 51% of consumers were non-white. Among the ethnic minority groups, Native Americans showed an especially high success rate— 71% achieved or made substantial progress toward their vocational goals. People with a range of disabilities participated in CEEP. A striking 32% of consumers identified a mental disorder as their primary disability, and the success rate of this group of participants was comparable to that of other participants.
For independent living centers and other organizations considering implementation of an informed choice approach to vocational rehabilitation, CEEP has demonstrated a model with many strengths, particularly in serving minority populations and people with mental disabilities. The CEEP model stressed (1) group intake and orientation, (2) empowerment workshops provided by professional consultants, (3) a focus on creative self-employment, (4) an open (non-vendorized) provider system, and (5) consumer control and a high level of flexibility to meet individual needs.
Three major products resulting from the demonstration project are (1) Group Orientation and Intake, (2) Empowerment Workshops, and (3) Open Provider System Model. Interested parties may obtain these products by accessing InfoUse’s Promising practices from the Choice Demonstration Projects: An operations manual (Stoddard, Hanson, & Temkin, 1999b) on the Internet at http://www.infouse.com/choice.
Comparison with other Choice projects revealed that CEEP had somewhat higher levels of reported choice and satisfaction than the levels reported across all the Choice projects. CEEP spent a larger than average percentage of resources on purchasing goods and services for participants, compared to other projects. In contrast to other Choice projects, CEEP purchases were primarily business and vocational training, college and university training, and computers for work or self-employment.
Abstract...............................................................................................................................
i
Table of Contents............................................................................................................
iii
Summary of Project
Accomplishments.........................................................................
1
Goals and
objectives....................................................................................................
1
Evaluation
methodology............................................................................................
1
Highlights of
major achievements............................................................................
2
Challenges and
difficulties encountered.................................................................
4
Program
Description: Services and Participants.........................................................
7
How consumers were
served.....................................................................................
7
Project staff....................................................................................................................
7
Purchasing goods
and services.................................................................................
8
Consumer
participants................................................................................................
8
Products available
and contact person for further information...........................
9
Will the project
be sustained after Federal funding ceases?.................................
9
Will the project
maintain the same level of services as federal funding decreases?
10
Major Evaluation
Findings: Outcome Measures and Their Relationship to Consumer and Service
Characteristics.................................................................................................................
10
CEEP success rates....................................................................................................
10
Purchased services
costs...........................................................................................
10
Length of service........................................................................................................
12
Underserved groups.................................................................................................
12
Level of education.....................................................................................................
17
Major Evaluation
Findings: Program Strengths and Weaknesses..........................
17
Orientation..................................................................................................................
17
Empowerment
training.............................................................................................
19
Open provider
system and vendor relationships................................................
20
Innovative
approaches to self-employment..........................................................
22
Counseling and
consumer choice...........................................................................
26
Payment systems.......................................................................................................
27
Criteria for
success.....................................................................................................
28
Project isolation
and tensions in the case management role...............................
28
Dissemination and
replication of project results..................................................
29
Major Evaluation
Findings: Comparing CEEP with
other Choice Demonstration Projects
30
Overall Choice and
Satisfaction...............................................................................
30
Patterns of
Purchased Goods and Services............................................................
32
Average Annual
Costs Per Participant...................................................................
35
Lessons learned:
Recommendations for Other Organizations Considering Implementation of This
Model...........................................................................................................................................
38
References........................................................................................................................
41
Appendix:
Project Materials........................................................................................
43
Orientation Guidelines.............................................................................................
43
Eligibility Criteria......................................................................................................
45
“I Hate to Budget”.....................................................................................................
47
Workshop Evaluation...............................................................................................
50
Make Informed Choices When Hiring Contractors!.............................................
51
Grantee:
Center for Independent Living
2539
Telegraph Avenue
Berkeley,
CA 94704
510-841-4776
The Choice Enhancement and Empowerment Project (CEEP) was sponsored by the Center for Independent Living in Berkeley, California (BCIL), a pioneer in the Independent Living movement. BCIL is a non-profit organization with offices in Berkeley and Oakland; a majority of board and staff members are people with disabilities. During six years of operation, the project targeted the approximately 60,000 persons with severe disabilities residing in Alameda and San Francisco Counties, particularly ethnic minorities and people with mental disabilities. Consistent with independent living philosophy, CEEP aimed to:
1. Empower persons with disabilities to make vocational choices,
2. Enhance the scope of vocational rehabilitation opportunities traditionally available to persons with disabilities, and
3. Target minority populations, particularly Latinos and Asian Americans, and persons who had a prior unsuccessful experience with the state Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) system.
This evaluation report is based on interviews with key personnel, board members, consumers, and vendors. We reviewed consumer case files, linked and analyzed the consumer and accounting databases, and reviewed previous evaluation reports and relevant project documents.
The evaluators reviewed the 494 case files from the project and conducted in-depth interviews with 34 consumers randomly selected from four outcome categories used in the project:
1. Successful consumers who reported self-employment (95 case files, 11 interviews),
2. Successful consumers who reported jobs (73 case files, 9 interviews),
3. Successful consumers who reported that they were empowered and had made substantial progress toward vocational goals (127 case files, 10 interviews), and
4. Consumers who reported that they were not successful or did not complete their plans (199 case files, 4 interviews).
This evaluation focused primarily on interviewing participants in the successful categories and we planned to interview fewer participants who were not successful or did not complete. Not surprisingly, participants in this category were harder to locate, particularly those who had ended unsuccessfully a number of years ago. We had access to a number of interviews with unsuccessful participants, completed in 1996 as part of the Year Three local evaluation (Jones & Jans, 1996b). We used those interviews to fill out the picture of consumers who were not successful.
The InfoUse evaluation team also interviewed past and present project directors, current staff members, board members, and vendors. The accounting department supplied relevant variables from the accounting database and we linked those variables to the consumer database in order to calculate purchased service costs per individual. Previous evaluation reports that we reviewed are cited in the References section, and project documents are included in the Appendix section.
Overall, 60% of CEEP consumers were successful in achieving or making substantial progress toward their vocational goals. Of successful consumers, 32% reported self-employment, 25% reported employment in a job, and 43% reported that they were empowered and had made substantial progress toward their vocational goals. The counselor, on the basis of a final telephone or in-person interview with the consumer, made the programmatic determination of whether a participant had been successful.
Self-employment success. Creative self-employment was a particular strength of the project, described in more detail in the section on self-employment outcomes. Success in self-employment encompassed a wide range of different employment activities, from part-time dog grooming to full-time computer consulting. Some successful participants attained self-employment that was completely self-sustaining. Other consumers who reported success in self-employment chose specifically not to generate a level of income that would cause them to lose their disability benefits. These consumers were grateful that CEEP respected this goal as a valid choice.
Job success. Participants who successfully completed in the job category reported a variety of jobs, from very part-time (a few hours a week) to full-time employment. Teachers were the largest category of professions in this category, followed by people engaged in computer work (word processing, programming, sales, manufacture, and graphics) and social services work (counselor, advocate, social worker, and nurse).
Success through empowerment and progress toward goals. People who reported empowerment and substantial progress toward attaining vocational goals were often still engaged in working toward their goals by the end of the project. A few had experienced health problems that forced them to postpone the completion of their goals, but felt that they had made solid progress. Some were attending school when the project ended. Others reported that their plans and/or the project had run out of money before they had fully achieved their goals. Almost without exception, the empowered consumers felt that their counselors supported them and encouraged them to believe in their ability to make choices within the constraints of their individual situations. They felt that CEEP project staff placed value on their improved personal well-being, even if they had not attained employment. Project staff and consumers also saw goals clarification itself as a valid product of participation in CEEP.
Purchased services. CEEP provided education, training, and equipment resources to many consumers who might not have been able to access such resources through other avenues. The cost of purchased services averaged $3,736 per participant who purchased any services. The average purchased services cost of successful cases was $4,207 per participant, ranging from an average of $3,641 for consumers who made substantial progress on their goals to an average of $5,093 for consumers who reported achieving their self-employment goals.
Ethnic minorities. Consistent with program goals, CEEP served a high percentage of ethnic and cultural minorities: 51% of consumers were non-white. Among the ethnic minority groups, Native Americans showed an especially high success rate —71% achieved their vocational goals.
People with mental disabilities. A striking 32% of consumers identified a mental disorder as their primary disability, and the success rate of this group of consumers was comparable to that of consumers whose primary disability was not a mental disability.
Philosophy of choice and consumer control. When consumers, project staff and others we interviewed were asked what was unique about CEEP, they talked with great excitement and enthusiasm about a philosophy of choice and an emphasis on consumer control. Although philosophy of choice and consumer control are hard to precisely define and quantify, they were seen by many as the "hallmark" of the CEEP model. Compared to other Choice projects nationwide, CEEP participants reported somewhat higher levels of choice and satisfaction than the levels reported across all the Choice projects.
Counseling relationship. Consumers frequently identified the encouragement and support of the counselors as critical to their success in attaining goals. The majority of consumers we interviewed felt personally supported and "cheered on" by the counselors.
Flexible approach. Flexibility in working with individual needs was another frequently cited strength of CEEP. For example, counselors sometimes conducted home visit intakes with people who had great difficulty leaving the house, and some of these people were able to attain their vocational goals.
We identified a number of elements of the model that seem to embody the CEEP philosophy and could potentially be replicated. These include group orientations, empowerment seminars, and an open market approach that allowed people to "use the marketplace" to find services and products. A creative approach to self-employment was another strength of the project that could be emulated. Finally we discuss elements of the project and the counseling relationship that seem to promote consumer control, empowerment, and a flexible approach to individual needs.