Career Choice is a stand-alone small group program
involving direct outreach, self assessment, a 12 week (3 hr./wk.) structured
group, available additional services/products budgeted by group decision, and
career club/business volunteer assistance.
Leaders are facilitators and role models. The most detailed descriptions of how it works are in a 128
page Career Choice Leadership Manual and an over 400 page coordinated
Participant Manual.
The Development Team, Inc. has had extensive
experience in the design, conduct and management of small group programs with
the purpose of enhancing employment opportunities of persons with disabilities.
Since 1984, in 28 states at over 100 separate sites “Career Choice”
or its more limited predecessor, “Job Raising” group programs have been
conducted, with support from various grants, and collaborative work by local
sites.
Career Choice, a national choice demonstration
project, involved 24 groups in five states at 11 separate sites.
While much of the early group work focused extensively on persons with
multiple sclerosis and then also on persons with arthritis, and involved
collaboration between The Development Team, Inc. and local chapters of several
national organizations, the Career Choice project was far broader.
It involved the development and testing of six versions of the basic
model, especially addressed to and accommodating for persons with: 1) physical
disabilities, 2) chronic disabilities, 3) learning disabilities, 4) hard of
hearing or deafness, 5) living with HIV, and 6) a cross-disability model which
was tested in a Center for Independent Living in Jacksonville and Daytona and 3
sites in the state VR agency in Vermont. The
first five variations were each tested at three general locations in San
Francisco/Oakland/Berkeley, Virginia/DC/Maryland, and Jacksonville, Florida.
Numerous variations of leadership sponsorship, management, facilities and
training were also tested.
Among group programs are minor variations in
outcomes, not always scientifically attributable from the data, but we felt we
understood almost all the reasons for variations. The compelling reality is that groups succeed, almost every
time. Once good outreach and self
assessment has assembled a group, it would take extraordinary ineptness by the
leadership to prevent the group from being successful and from many individuals
having appropriate employment related outcomes. This conclusion stems from the fairly wide variation in
leadership background, skills and actual performance, but the narrower
differences among groups in outcome.
Career Choice is a program very substantially
improved from the predecessor models and the employment outcome results are
better in terms of outcomes and other factors.
But the actual percentage of persons completing the group program who
achieved documented employment (for 60 or more days) is only slightly better.
Among more than 3000 persons with disabilities who completed Career
Choice or Job Raising since 1984, more than 70% achieved their employment
objective. Career Choice alone has
a 73% employment outcome rate. We
know the reasons why most persons who did not achieve planned outcomes had that
result; the largest reason is a change in health circumstance.
We believe that there is an upper limit on reasonable outcome
expectations of efficient group programs like Career Choice, and that we came
quite close to the upper limit. In
truth, major increases in program resources would not likely produce much better
results.
This project was very thorough in all aspects of
performance and persistent in management oversight so that it would be more
possible to identify what works and what doesn’t and why.
It turns out to be a forgiving and tolerant system where improper or
relatively poor performance of leadership in group facilitation does not
significantly impair outcomes. While we believe that patronizing or authoritarian attitudes
of leadership are potentially the most serious problems, it is also clearly
possible to structure procedures and group sessions so that the impacts of poor
leadership attitudes are minimized and “Choice” continues to be enhanced.
Only once did we decide to replace one leadership person after a group
had begun; even this action did not seriously impact the participants in the
group.
We conclude that enhanced “choice”, should be
built into the program model – not simply the hoped for result of benevolent
or skillful leadership decisions. We
believe, contrary to many others including some of the other choice projects,
that enhanced “choice” or real choice is one of the core means to improve
program design and increase program efficiency. And, regarding project direction/program management the
primary place of enhanced choice is a clarifying and liberating principle which
makes solutions to issues/problems easier.
One area that was not listed in the legislation as a
specific circumstance where choice should be enhanced is the choice of which,
among whatever options exist in the community, process or program or course of
action an individual wants to pursue in order to achieve his/her employment
objective. We are convinced this is
often a very important choice, which deserves a process which helps the choice
be informed. Career Choice had to
be especially careful not to persuade or discourage persons considering the
Career Choice program, but to help them be informed about all the options.
In the best of all worlds, this function would be performed by an
independent system not directly attached to VR or any other program of services.
Those who chose among options may well be more likely to accept the
limitations or inconveniences of the option they select.
For example, in the case of a group program, it is clear at the beginning
that a group’s schedule/plan is not completely adaptable to the best time
allocations and focus on substance that might be achieved in a totally
individualized approach – thus, those who choose group process believe there
are compensating benefits to these limitations. The very high levels and broad range of self satisfaction
reported in our post program surveys (and confirmed independently by the
national evaluation program) is, we believe, significantly related to a serious
informed choice process (we called it “self-assessment”) about whether to
become a participant based on a description of the Career Choice program which
did not promise anything we were not certain we could produce and which was very
clear at the beginning what the obligations of each participant would be.
Career Choice as an established program at a single
location with long term funding would have more systems of ongoing outreach,
more consistency in leadership, less ongoing work in establishing its legitimacy
and integrity, and more collaboration with other community systems – than was
possible in a demonstration testing many variations at many places.
There are costs of beginning a program which reduce considerably in a
stable ongoing program. TDTI in
collaboration with CILs in Jacksonville and Tampa submitted a grant application
to RSA to demonstrate an ongoing very efficient Career Choice program – one
obvious next step. It was not
awarded; comments of peer reviewers illuminated the incredible differences that
exist among persons in the “field” – one reviewer was certain that the
program described in the application would not work for anyone.
The real truth is that design of group programming is
a liberating experience, where building into the model more extensive
“choice” and providing a schedule/plan to inform the choice is almost
entirely beneficial and feasible. The
only major limitation is the length of the group program, and this is especially
a limitation which effects whether or not individuals will commit to the whole
program before they begin the group, and therefore a group formation design
issue.
Finally, with respect to general overall comments
about how Career Choice worked, we want to report that almost every organization
which collaborated with TDTI to sponsor and promote the program underestimated
the importance of large scale direct outreach in order to finally assemble a
group of 10-12 participants. Only once did we ultimately fail to assemble a group – it
was when we sought to recruit participants who were each both deaf and HIV
positive. But we had several small
groups due mostly to insufficient outreach and we had several delays of three to
six weeks in group start in order to increase group size.
One time, we discovered that the local staff performing outreach and
self-assessment had purposely improperly implemented the first-come,
first-served procedure. It caused
us to stop everything, change the relationship with the Center, directly hire
new leadership and redo the entire outreach and self-assessment process.
It was costly in many respects, but the revised process worked very well.
For the period March 1994 through December 1998, 226
persons enrolled in Career choice and 185 persons completed the 12-week peer
group program. Thus, 82% of those
who began groups completed; the original grant application estimated 85%.
We estimated that 72% of those who completed would have verifiable
outcomes – and achieved 73%. We over-achieved the number of sites and number of groups as
compared to the negotiated application (with lower resources in 2nd
through 5th year than requested in the original application.)
And, we exceeded the initially targeted variations of disability type and
program sponsorship. We tested a
completely unpredicted version of the Career Choice within a state VR agency.
In fact, while we did more than that which we said we would do, we did do
everything we said we would do and almost all of it worked very well.
That which was thought to be the most unusual method
we proposed – namely, to have each group decide the budget for additional
services/products – worked better than even we thought it would.
Doubters before the fact were widespread but those who participated in or
witnessed these sessions (the Project Director participated in every one at
every site) speak very favorably about that which actually happened, time after
time. Only one such session had to
be done a second time based on the appeals of participants; they essentially
believed they had been too easy on two of the participants and had thereby not
really done that which was in these participants’ interest.
They were tougher the second time, in a very caring way.
The one other appeal was where a group felt they should have conditioned
a budgeted product on the person first taking a college level course in writing
skills – which the person so challenged did.
The point is that the project implemented with integrity all that which
it proposed including those techniques which were considered – but really were
not – controversial.
Demographics: Those
who entered Career Choice
Age:
23-64
Average: 41
Gender:
Male 49.56%
Female 50.44%
Ethnicity:
Black 22% White 66% Hispanic 6%
Other 6%
Education:
8-22 years
Average: 14.6
years
Receiving SSDI or SSI at entry:
48%
Prior experience as VR client:
34%
Still employed at entry:
35%
Demographics: Those
who completed Career Choice
No significant differences from above except:
Receiving SSDI or SSI at entry:
40%
(Of those who did not complete Career Choice, 73%
were SSI or SSDI recipients.)
Among all those who completed Career Choice and for
whom we have complete two year follow up data, 73.27% achieved an appropriate
employment outcome. Among those who
were on SSDI or SSI at entry and completed, 51.43% achieved an employment
outcome. There were no significant
differences in outcome achievements whether one had or did not have prior
experience as a VR client. In fact,
apart from SSI/SSDI, there are no indicators among the data fields Career Choice
collected which would clearly predict a lessened expectation of achieving an
employment objective except the more generalized factor of education below high
school. This project was not
designed to test degrees of severity of disability vv. employment outcome.
Our strong overall conclusion is that almost all who entered were what
would be classified as “severely disabled”, but within this population –
who chose to participate – outcome differences by severity was not apparent.
Among the serious accomplishments of Career Choice
was the development and actual publication of separate Leadership and
Participant Manuals directed to and accommodating of various types of disabling
conditions and one set of Manuals designed for use in cross disability groups.
These six sets of manuals, most of which each had three gradually
improved and tested editions, were a tremendous amount of work.
The effort was mostly managed by Shirley Rohaly of the TDTI staff, but
widespread contributions were made by many national and regional experts –
mostly persons who were themselves persons with disabilities.
An extensive immediate feedback system provided the insights for
improvements in subsequent similar programs.
After producing and testing model versions to serve persons with: 1)
physical disabilities, 2) chronic disabilities, 3) learning disabilities, 4)
deafness and hard of hearing disabilities, and 5) persons living with HIV; we
were finally convinced we could produce a version to be used on a cross
disability basis without losing too much of the special insight by which
participants help each other deal with reality.
There is a sense in which each group program is a
separate complete accomplishment. Thus,
to prove that this can be done again and again under a wide variety of
conditions, and that it works well every time it is done in general accord with
the set of outlined activities and perspectives, is the accomplishment of having
produced a broadly replicable model.
So, from the viewpoint of project management and
leadership, the processes designed to achieve “enhanced choice” were all
successfully implemented. The more
important question is whether participants truly felt they made their own
choices. There are three relatively
independent venues in which participants expressed their views on this matter:
1) in group discussions toward the conclusion of each group, 2) in post program
surveys conducted by the program, 3) in interviews with independent evaluators.
In each, participants express very positively their belief that they made
their own decisions about all the primary choices.
We believe we came close to the highest achievement realistically
possible in this matter of “choice.”
Elsewhere we have discussed some design
considerations.
One approach (design) Career Choice used was to
propose thorough materials for every aspect of the program.
Leadership activities are elaborately described in the Leadership Manual.
For participants, there are a series of materials to be used in
self-assessment, program commitment and data recording.
Thereafter, there is a plan book (we called it a P.A.C.C. – Plan to
Achieve Career Choice) and a twelve chapter Participant Manual for use related
to each of the 12 sessions. The
extensive scheduling and detailing help people create the occasion to decide
elements of a plan and move on. It
is true that variations occur among every group in precisely how they deal with
each scheduled item, but they tend to deal with them in a manner not too far
from “the book” – thus, the group process has a predicted momentum which
keeps almost all moving and accomplishing for themselves as much as can be done
with twelve sessions and twelve weeks.
There is a proclivity among leaders who embrace
“choice” to be flexible in terms of process, and to believe they know a
better way to do something. The
trick for senior management is to learn when they in fact do know a better way
and restrain the degree to which they have to learn by mistakes that which the
program already knows quite well. In
these circumstances it is better to have too detailed a structure rather than
not enough structure. And, the
structure is probably more important to getting a balance of various
techniques/processes than it is to covering substance and facts and issues.
We had objectives for each group session and strongly urged leadership to
complete sessions, rather than splitting them, even when this involved time
adjustments for segments of a group session.
Career Choice tried very hard to hold the middle
ground; the group process was to be neither an education class nor group
therapy. We encouraged
“session” rather than “class.” For
quite a few years we usually referred to the entire process as “group
training.” More recently we have
come to feel that “training” isn’t the right word either.
This group is a process in which individuals are making their own plan
based on their own decisions – hopefully in a far more informed fashion than
if they were making these decisions without participating in the group.
Career Choice tried some variations of the sequence
of group subjects for group discussion, and tested the degree to which two
tracks could proceed in parallel through several sessions.
There is both more design in the sequencing of sessions and portions of
sessions than is apparent and also more improvements as a result of experience.
The basic sequence is: 1) personal issues, 2) employment objective, 3)
services/products needed, 4) selection of where to obtain additional
services/products, 5) job seeking/ keeping skills, 6) transition to assuming
responsibility. It is not possible
within 12 sessions to put all these issues in series; there has to be some
overlapping/parallel, but keep it to a minimum because parallel tracks are
especially difficult for many persons with certain types of disabilities.
Enclosed with this report is a one page “Overview of Career Choice
Group Training Program,” and a one page “Contents Checklist: Plan to Achieve
Career Choice.” Exhaustive detail
about each session is in the two Manuals.
The concluding services method was a combination of a
Career Club held monthly for three months and a business volunteer in the same
field as an individual’s employment objective for those who wanted one.
Even now it is not clear how well this worked; it was sometimes difficult
to implement and hard to monitor. We
know performance was sometimes excellent, but often these services did not reach
the level we had hoped. This period
of transition to responsibility is one when less may be more or at least not
trying to intervene to force actions in a heavy handed “case management”
fashion is the painful moment – for both persons who just completed to program
and leadership persons. What is
clear is that in the three months following the group sessions – while Career
Club and Business Volunteers are operational, more than 50% of former
participants achieve their immediate employment objective, and most of the rest
who achieve their objective do so in the following six months – usually
without further intervention by any services system except the services they
selected/arranged through Career Choice. Thus,
while the Career Club/Business Volunteer method appears to need improvements,
there is not a belief that such improvement could significantly improve
outcomes.
Another activity by participants usually being
accomplished immediately after the group program is the purchase of additional
services or products, since decisions are finalized in the 11th
session and unappealable after the 12th session when checks are
distributed or other arrangements concluded.
There is nothing like a limited amount of money to structure real efforts
to get the most for one’s money, and there were occasions when we voided
checks and wrote new ones – once three times – to places that offered more
or better products or longer warranties, etc.
We believe that a very few people misused some of the resources they were
given, but nearly everyone followed through in purchases – simple processes
for audit were sufficient. Spending
time on “vendors” would have been hopelessly wasteful – with the possible
exception of computer/software products.
D. Participants:
Diversity, Satisfaction
Differences in human personality, experience and
aspirations are much more extensive than are the extent of differences between
persons with different types of disabilities or between persons with
disabilities and others. Self
chosen employment objectives of participants in Career Choice resemble a random
sample of the Dictionary of Occupation Titles.
It is this vast diversity, even among a group of ten to twelve persons
with similar (or different) disabling conditions which requires a mainstream
model for obtaining/retaining employment. It
makes a project directly operating a “placement” service for participants
and also fully embracing choice unfeasible.
Programs which try to recruit persons with
disabilities for a certain type of job training, e.g. computer programming,
either do not take serious account of “choice” of employment objectives, and
readiness issues, or they presume that an unusually high percentage of persons
with disabilities want to be programmers. This
is a serious “choice” limitation of such models as compared to a model which
uses to the maximum extent feasible mainstream systems for obtaining employment.
There are some things which participants tend to have
in common resulting from the impacts of disability on their lives.
These are the areas where participants in a group can especially help
each other. Some are attitudinal
matters, and some are special skills – e.g. disclosure.
If one trusts choice, then participant satisfaction
is very likely to be more a result of participants selecting a program rather
than programs selecting participants. Satisfaction
means that you received that which you bargained for/paid for/expected.
Employment satisfaction is beyond that which can be promised in
mainstream systems; but satisfaction with a program which is quite clear about
how it will help someone help themselves is a strong probability.
The more important sense of satisfaction is
self-satisfaction or self efficacy. We
asked self efficacy questions in the telephone and face to face interviews, and
then asked the same questions again in the post program survey.
The degree to which participants believed they improved their ability to
deal with various aspects of obtaining and retaining employment is probably the
best way to determine that which participants believe to be the long term value
of the program. Improvements of
self efficacy were quite broad and almost universally self reported.
A participant usually cannot know what additional
services/products are most needed until after he/she has an employment objective
and has translated the primary barriers (disability related or not) to achieving
the objective into a reasonable statement of specific needs.
In Career Choice, an employment objective was the primary work during
sessions 4-5-6. The work of
identifying needs, followed by services/products and preferred places to obtain
the same occurred as the primary work of two and a half sessions and the outside
work up to session 10 when purchase requests were completed.
Each participant knew from the self assessment
interview, from a brief discussion in Session I and an extensive discussion in
Session 7 how Session 11 would happen. Also
the Participant Manual had a complete outline of Session 11.
And at the beginning of Session 11, the facilitator again reviewed the
process. Among the rules were: 1)
the facilitator would chair the peer review and budgeting session but would have
no “vote”, 2) participants were responsible to make the best judgements they
are able to help achieve outcomes for as many as possible – to rise to their
best as have many democratic gatherings throughout history.
The amount of money available to be budgeted was also
reviewed at the beginning of Session 11. In
every case it was $1,300 times the number of participants completing the
program, not to be divided equally but to be allocated according to relative
needs. And, in every case the
amount of money already used for transportation, baby sitters, etc. in order to
attend was deducted – this usually was between $100-300.
Sometimes the requests were quite a bit more than the available resources
– sometimes they were about the same – occasionally the resources would
exceed the requests, but often secondary priorities would be dismissed.
The project never offered more than $100 extra to finalize the budget.
The type of services and products budgeted were
mostly mainstream – everything one could imagine and more.
Products were slightly more frequent than services.
Computer literacy and developed computer skills were the single strongest
choice. The only things that were out of bounds was ongoing medicine
and anything illegal. Some
participants did not believe they needed anything.
The highest amount allocated to one person was $4,800.
The heart of Session 11 was the peer review process
and subsequent budgeting process. Participants,
volunteers first, used copies of their purchase request to present to the group
their employment objective, their needs related to the objective, and the
details of their purchase request(s). Up
to four sets of requests, by priority, were allowed but usually it was one or
two.
They said exactly what they requested, how much it
costs, where they would get it, and what other options they considered.
Discussion and questions from the group followed.
Thereafter, each of the other members of the group filled out a peer
review sheet, scoring each request on a scale of 0-3.
(Almost no requests scoring under 1.5 were ever funded.)
The first and second presentations were used to model the process, and
the rest went faster. A full group
took 1 ½ to 2 hours to finish peer review.
Usually the requests were recorded on flip charts or a blackboard, and a
member of the leadership team took all the peer review sheets and privately
calculated the average peer review score. After
a break, each participant receives a copy of a budget sheet with all the
requests, their costs, and all the peer review scores.
The budget session begins by together reviewing the whole set of requests
and determining how they compare to the available resources.
Then the facilitator is responsible to stimulate a serious discussion,
trying to determine for the group why some requests were scored low.
This should not be skipped/avoided; there are reasons, and they will come
out. It may be delicate, but most
groups do this in a very caring way. It
is at this point that it is determined not to fund some requests.
Thereafter, if necessary, discussions ensue about who could cut back and
partially fund their request in some other way.
Usually this has been a moving experience where generosity and self
limitation are far more evident than selfishness. In fact, groups usually resent selfishness and ultimately
bring it up. In the end, by
majority decision if necessary, the budget matches the resources. All participants then sign a copy of the final budget; it is
saved for the auditor.
The session follows with a discussion of whether
participants made their own decisions – they have always said yes.
Thereafter, the potential of appeal and the way in which participants
will manage the purchase of services/products conclude the session.
We believe one full time program manager responsible
to supervise and partially perform all the activities/tasks necessary to conduct
each group can handle program management for up to five groups per year,
including lead facilitation in three and direct involvement in all five.
This would include ongoing training of other leadership persons who may
be involved in only one or two groups.
For each group a new leadership team is assembled –
always led by the program manager. Additional
persons may include lead facilitator, co-facilitator, other helpers, clerical
help, etc. It can assign the tasks
to best use the individual skills/access of leadership persons.
A majority of the leadership team are persons with disabilities.
We believe a senior manager may be able to deal
effectively with a maximum of six full time program managers.
Thus, when the scale of annual activity exceeds 30 groups or about 300
participants completing the program, a second senior manager would be needed.
It is possible for senior management to know on a
weekly basis whether that week’s work for any group was properly completed,
and it is possible for senior management to supervise part time workers in
ongoing data collection, leadership training, and clerical functions.
And, it is possible for senior management to sustain ongoing evaluation
functions with respect to program and personnel management.
The recruitment of leadership – especially program
managers – is a senior management function about which we believe the key
function is to be sure each has “the right stuff,” otherwise known as a
genuine belief that persons with disabilities can make better decisions for
themselves, especially if choice is informed, than they could possibly make for
them. Qualifications do not need to
be narrowly drawn, but group leadership experience is necessary for the lead
facilitator and some experience in interviewing is needed by those facilitating
self-assessments prior to program entry.
G.
The Vermont Demonstration:
Career Choice Conducted by a State VR Agency
The Career Choice project, having already completed
much of its development work by late 1996, explored with Vermont DVR officials
the potential of conducting a few group programs at sites in Vermont under the
auspices of the state VR agency. We
were interested in testing the viability of state employed VR counselors to
function as program managers, and in exploring the problems which might be
encountered. But even more
straight-forwardly, we were interested in demonstrating that Career Choice is a
stand- alone program which could be conducted by a state VR agency, as an
alternate option for some “clients.”
We met with a representative group of counselors from
across the state, and with several statewide leaders, the first time for two
days to explore and define the issues; the second time for another two days
(Feb. 19-20, 1997) to decide whether or not to go forward and if so to make a
plan. Simultaneously, on February
11, 1997 we sought (and received) formal approval from RSA to alter the Career
Choice project so as to include the demonstration in Vermont DVR and also to
produce a cross disability version to be used there and in CILs.
Subsequently, three group programs were developed and
conducted. The first was in Barre
in the Spring of 1997 and the other two in Burlington and Rutland in the fall of
1997. In each of the three sites,
two or more counselors were involved – and in all three the leadership team
included one or more persons with disabilities who served in facilitator,
co-facilitator, interviewer and/or other capacities. Two day leadership training was held and various other
consultation took place.
Twenty two persons registered at the three sites:
seventeen completed the program. The
demographic characteristics of the participants were different from both the
average Career Choice participant or the average Vermont DVR client in various
respects. Compared to average
Career Choice participants they were: 1) 20% higher female, 2) 28% lower
non-white, 3) 1.5 years lower in educational achievement, 25% higher on SSI/SSDI,
4) 43% higher current/prior VR experience, and 20% lower still employed at
entry. In addition, there was a
much higher percentage of persons with mental health conditions. In part, the limitations of outreach options may have
produced some of the differences – because of time limitations we mostly
sought out persons in VR for whom the existing programs had not achieved results
and those at the moment entering the system.
And, we did outreach through some other organizations.
In part because of the population being widely spread out and because of
the time limitations, smaller groups than usual were formed with Burlington
having the largest group.
From the point of view of Career Choice, the
counselors who ultimately served in leadership roles had a great deal of “the
right stuff”; they embraced the model and were committed to “choice.”
Many of their colleagues were interested in what they were doing.
Supervisors spent time understanding the model and following its
activities. The State Director and
her staff were actively interested and involved.
Only occasionally did the “case management” inclinations tend to
force the choices. The advanced
skills of some of the leaders made real contributions to program improvement.
An all day formal evaluation session involving the
Career Choice project staff, many of the Vermont leaders including those from
the community, participants from each site, the State Director, and other state
staff was held. Data from Career
Choice and an independent survey of participants were reported.
Results of the Career choice post-program surveys for 17 participants,
everyone who completed the program, were studied.
The employment outcomes had not reached the usual Career Choice levels.
But, the staff, the participants and the state leadership were very
certain that the program had “moved along” some who had had no significant
improvement through prior VR services. Participants
reported improvements and outcomes; the post-program survey showed self-assessed
strong improvements on every measure of self-efficacy and a widely distributed
positive assessment of the parts of the program that were most helpful.
Two leadership teams told the State Director that
they would each like to conduct two more group programs in the following year,
essentially according to the Career Choice model. The leaders of the other (Barre) were not there, but others
from Barre made similar suggestions. There
was a significant discussion about the type of outreach effort that would be
better than that which had been done. Also,
it was recognized that a process of choice at initial program entry was the wise
course.
TDTI in collaboration with Vermont DVR submitted an
application for a special project which would have implemented Career Choice in
three additional state agencies and solidified the program in Vermont.
While the peer review scores were at the very top, RSA judged that the
manner in which we proposed to obtain commitments from the Empowerment Zones
including the one in Burlington was not sufficient to permit the award of the
extra ten points. Thus, the award
was not funded; everyone that was funded had obtained the extra ten points.
That ended the potential for TDTI to stimulate a Career Choice program in
another state VR agency.
The costs to conduct very good ongoing group programs
may be as low as 30% of that which it would cost to individually serve the same
persons and have similar employment outcomes.
However to begin a new model for which the agency, organization has no
background or experience is an additional cost.
And, obviously the cost per person of group program rises if thorough
outreach will not, at any one time, produce enough persons who want to
participate that a group of 10-12 participants can be assembled – (we believe
a group should never be less than five participants.)
Outreach difficulties occur in some relatively sparsely populated areas
which have already received strong attention from VR.
This demonstration was not a sufficient demonstration
of how efficient one could be in conducting and managing a group program –
precisely because we attempted to demonstrate multiple variations and were
responsible to organize each option and create the materials and resource
identification for each. We wrote a
grant application to conduct a stable cross disability program at two CILs in
Florida. The whole cost of a
comprehensive model (not needing other resources) was less than $3,000 per
individual who would complete the program, including all management costs, but
this application was not funded.
During the demonstration project, TDTI was ultimately
in control of every group, but we experimented with a variety of degrees and
types of program sponsorship by local organizations.
The Center for Independent Living in Jacksonville which was involved from
year two through the rest of the project, and continued Career Choice after the
project, was the strongest sponsorship. At
the inception TDTI provided one of its staff members – Erika Doring – as the
program manager and facilitator, and only after five groups did we switch to
program management by the CIL staff. At
ECNV in Northern Virginia and at Berkeley CIL program managers were initially
selected by the centers and thereafter in both instances TDTI had to exercise
lack of concurrence to have them dismissed.
Soon thereafter, this essentially ended the collaboration with ECNV in
Virginia. In Berkeley we directly
employed a new program director, a former participant, and shifted to a far more
limited sponsorship by Berkeley CIL which worked very well. In all the programs associated with or sponsored by CILs
additional collaborating organizations were recruited – depending upon which
persons from what type of disabling conditions were to receive outreach
brochures.
We experimented with sponsorships of one or more
programs each by group which were focused exclusively on persons with one type
of disability, e.g. deafness, persons living with HIV.
We involved some collaborator staff in the leadership teams – e.g.
learning disabilities. In the end,
sponsorship and collaboration serve an important front end credibility function.
Also organizations actually have names and addresses of potential
participants. Once a group is
formed and begins, credibility is no longer very important.
Thus, it is quite possible for one organization to pay for the program
and exercise overall management control, while other local organizations sponsor
individual group programs. Local
program management of Career Choice should report to an overall Career Choice
management regarding program performance, regardless of other arrangements.
It is feasible for a state VR agency to set Career
Choice up with either their own staff as program managers or with sponsorships
by CILs and/or other organizations. It
may also be feasible for a VR agency to contractually employ a private
company/organization to perform the overall management.
It is feasible for CILs or other organizations to
obtain resources in other ways to conduct such a program, but it is very
unlikely they would invest the level of funds required if they themselves had to
raise the resources in their traditional ways.
There are now a significant number of separate
efforts throughout the nation to begin a group program.
We have talked with several. And
there appears to be more interest in a group model than earlier.
But there are very limited options in terms of packaged resources, and
there are not many persons who have had extensive leadership experience. Moreover, the idea of creating the model from scratch and
developing all the tools is only a good idea if you have plenty of resources and
time before you begin direct service.
We believe that key people in the proposed
sponsoring/managing organization would need to have as a minimum a clear plan
for outreach – group formation and a fairly detailed schedule of the
topics/issues to be covered along with much of the participant resources.
Also, some system by which each participant records the elements of a
plan he/she completes by the end of the group – or before.
Implicit in an outreach plan is a minimum level of initial work on
achieving collaboration.
Thereafter, set a tentative calendar and budget and
obtain real approval from the governing authority/board.
Recruit a program manager. Together
with the program manager recruit a leadership team for the first group.
Hold a two-day leadership training session. Then, publish an outreach brochure, or otherwise implement an
outreach plan. Do not begin a group
with more than 13 or less than 5 participants.
Do not permit drop-ins or partial commitments. Do not allow observers, except rarely and with prior group approval. Stay on schedule week by week – there is always more that could be covered, but in the end the process and schedule are as important as the substance. Schedule an extra session only as a last resort. Don’t admit any new participants after the second session. Consider advice from others who have done group work; there are some things learned by experience which may not appear so clearly at the beginning.