Washington
State Division of Vocational Rehabilitation
Choice
Demonstration Grant
Participant
Empowerment Project
Final
Report
84-23-5D
Overview
3-6
Assumptions
6-19
Assumption
One
7 -6
Assumption
Two
7-10
Assumption
Three
10-13
Assumption
Four
13-15
Assumption
Five
15-17
Assumption
Six
17-19
Approaches
and Tools
20-23
Partnership
Agreement
24
Pre-team
Exploration Sheet
25-26
Topics
Covered in First Team Meeting
27
Participant
Stories
28-34
Data
35-38
Conclusion 39-40
Washington State Division
of Vocational Rehabilitation (DVR) implemented their Choice Demonstration Grant,
the Participant Empowerment Project (PEP) to develop and design approaches that
ensure the rehabilitation process was participant driven.
The project attempted to merge the independent living philosophy into
vocational rehabilitation, thus taking vocational rehabilitation away from a
medical model approach where the responsibility for the solution rested with the
counselor. PEP implemented a team
model approach that allowed participants to define their strengths and have
those strengths determine their vocational direction.
Successful strategies developed by PEP are scheduled to be integrated
into the Division’s vocational rehabilitation program.
The project was structured to
work with 500 individuals over a five-year period.
PEP actually served 383 individuals.
Individuals were referred to PEP by the Division, the community, and
self-referral. Participants could
not have an open case in both DVR and PEP.
The population that PEP served mirrored those
the Division served. The project
had three full time staff, one contract staff from a center for independent
living and a part time clerical support staff.
One staff came from a rehabilitation background, one had worked for the
Client Assistant Program and one had no previous rehabilitation experience.
PEP functioned
separately from the Division. An
Advisory Board designed all the
project’s policies and procedures. The
Board included past DVR participants, past PEP participants, representatives
from underserved communities, Independent Living providers, a Regional
Administrator from DVR, a representative from the mental health community, a
business representative, other community representatives, a vocational service
provider and a Client Assistance Program representative. Their role was
to provide direction and oversee the functioning of the project.
Half the Advisory Board were individuals with disabilities.
The
project was not housed in one of the Division’s offices,
but was located in an office building in
the middle of the business district of Seattle. The project intentionally chose a location that was business
oriented.
Referred
individuals
attended
an orientation that described the program, its
purpose, the parameters and expectations. Individuals
also received information on how eligibility was determined and the interview
questions that would be asked during intake.
The rationale behind giving potential participants the intake information
was so that they could understand what would occur at intake and had time to
think about how they wanted to answer the questions.
Participants were able to self-report their disability for eligibility
determination in the project.
Once in the project, participants were offered a wide menu of informational classes taught by community resource providers, past participants and project staff. Participants spent time with their counselor determining what type of support they wanted, who to invite to help develop a vocational plan, and what information they needed to make decisions. The individuals the participant invited to help with the planning formed their rehabilitation team (rehab team).
The role of the team was to
help participants establish solid vocational plans that reflected their interest
and strengths. The
rehab team also helped participants to determine how much money to
allocate towards services in their plan.
Each team meeting ended with an action plan that listed
the steps to be accomplished in a four to six week period.
The short-term plans allowed participants to control the process and have
success that they could build upon. The
short duration of the action plans allowed participants to easily change or
correct a plan that was not working. The
action plan formed the foundation for the Individual
Written Rehabilitation Plan. Coordinating
and facilitating rehab teams was time consuming and took about twenty percent of
staff time.
The project
wanted to give participants control over their case service dollars.
In reality the control was shared with participants and their teams.
Participants had a starting account of $3,300 to pay for their vocational
needs, but if needed, could add to that account to accomplish their plan.
The participant and his or her team determined
how vocational dollars were spent. Participants
negotiated for the services they wanted directly with community providers.
Participants were free to develop and use non-traditional
providers.
Participants chose
when their cases was closed. The
Division believed that if participants were going to control their
rehabilitation then participants should be the ones determining when their
employment outcomes had been achieved. In
a comparison study between Washington State VR and PEP there was an insufficient
difference between the average time of case closure.
PEP participants were in service 420 days prior to closure.
DVR participants were in service 401 days prior to closure.
(See appendix for Comparison Study) In PEP’s experience, participants
closed their cases when it made sense for them to do so.
There was little difference between when a counselor would have closed a
participant’s case and when the participant chose to close their case.
The project was successful in helping participants control their rehabilitation services and in structuring informed choice into approaches that could later be implemented by the Division. Ninety-two percent of the participants who used PEP said that they would use the service again if they need it.