As a rule disabled people have far fewer opportunities for occupational integration open to them than does the general population, a situation confirmed by all available data. However, in many countries political initiatives have been developed to improve this situation. Thus we find, for example, legal regulations requiring business enterprises to employ a specific percentage of disabled people, as well as—often in addition to this—financial incentives for employers to hire disabled people. Moreover, recent years have also seen the creation of services in many countries providing support and assistance to disabled people making their way into working life. The following contribution aims to describe these services and their specific tasks in the context of vocational rehabilitation and the integration of disabled people into employment.
We are concerned with services which become active, providing advice and support, during the rehabilitation phase—the preparatory phase prior to the disabled person’s entry into working life. Whereas support services used to limit themselves almost exclusively to this area, modern services have, in view of the continued existence on a global scale of employment problems of the disabled, turned their attention increasingly towards the stages dealing with placement and integration in an enterprise.
The increase in importance achieved by these services for the promotion of occupational integration has come about not least by growing community-based rehabilitation activities and, from a practical viewpoint, ever more numerous and successful approaches to the social integration of the disabled into the community. The continuing tendency towards the opening and overcoming of care institutions as mere places of confinement for disabled individuals has made the occupational and employment requirements for this group of people really visible for the first time. We are thus confronted with a growing variety of these support services because the growing demand for the integration of all disabled people into the community brings with it an increase in the associated tasks.
Rehabilitation and Integration
Only when disabled people are integrated into the community is the real aim and purpose of rehabilitation actually achieved. The objective of vocational rehabilitation programmes thus ultimately remains the finding of a job and hence participation in the local labour market.
As a rule, measures for medical and vocational rehabilitation lay the foundations for the (re)integration of disabled persons into working life. They aim to put the disabled individual in a position to be able to develop his or her own abilities in such a way that a life with no, or with a minimum of limitations in society at large becomes possible. The services which are active in this phase and which accompany the disabled person during this process are termed rehabilitation support services. Whereas one used to be able to assume that a completed course of medical rehabilitation and a well-founded vocational rehabilitation were, if not guarantees, then at least key factors for occupational integration, these elementary conditions are no longer adequate in view of the changing situation on the labour market and the complex requirements of the workplace. Of course solid vocational qualifications still form the basis of occupational integration, yet under today’s conditions many disabled people require additional assistance in looking for work and in integration into the workplace. The services active during this phase can be summarized under the name employment support services.
Whereas medical and vocational rehabilitation measures take as their primary point of departure the disabled persons themselves, and attempt to develop their functional capacities and vocational skills, the main emphasis of the employment support services lies on the side of the working environment and hence on the adaptation of the environment to the requirements of the disabled individual.
General Perspectives for Vocational Integration
In spite of the importance of the support services it should never be forgotten that rehabilitation should never, in any phase, be a merely passive form of treatment, but a process actively directed by the disabled person. Diagnosis, counselling, therapy and other forms of support can at best be an aid in the pursuit of self-defined objectives. Ideally the task of these services is still to outline the various options for action available, options which disabled people should ultimately decide for themselves, as far as possible.
Another no less significant parameter for occupational integration is to be seen in the holistic character which should be a hallmark of this process. That means that rehabilitation should be comprehensive and not just deal with the overcoming of impairment. It should involve the whole person and provide him or her with support in finding a new identity or in coping with the social consequences of disability. The rehabilitation of disabled people is in many cases far more than a process of physical stabilization and the extension of skills; if the course of rehabilitation is to run successfully and satisfactorily it must also be a process of psychosocial stabilization, identity formation and integration into everyday social relationships.
An important area of work for support services, and one which is unfortunately all too often ignored, is the field of the prevention of serious disabilities. For working life in particular it is crucial that rehabilitation and employment services are open not just to people who are already disabled but also to those who are threatened by disability. The earlier the reaction to a commencing disability, the sooner that steps towards occupational reorientation can be taken, and the earlier that serious disabilities can be avoided.
These general perspectives for vocational rehabilitation also provide an outline of the essential tasks and parameters for the work of the support services. Furthermore, it should also be clear that the complex tasks described here can best be fulfilled by the interdisciplinary collaboration of experts from various professions. Modern rehabilitation can thus be seen as cooperation between the disabled person and a team of professional trainers as well as qualified medical, technical, psychological and educational personnel.
Medical Rehabilitation
Medical rehabilitation measures usually take place in hospitals or in special rehabilitation clinics. The task of the support services in this phase consists of initiating first steps towards coping psychologically with a disability which has been suffered. However, occupational (re)orientation should also take place as soon as possible, practically at the patient’s bedside, since the construction of a new vocational perspective often helps to lay decisive motivational foundations which can also facilitate the medical rehabilitation process. Other measures such as motor and sensory training programmes, physiotherapy, movement and occupational or speech therapy can also contribute during this phase towards accelerating the natural regenerative process and reducing or avoiding the creation of dependencies.
The decision concerning the vocational perspectives of a disabled person should under no circumstances be taken from a purely medical point of view by a doctor, as is unfortunately still often the case in practice. The basis of any decision on the vocational future of a disabled person should be formed not just by deficits which can be medically diagnosed but rather by existing abilities and skills. The rehabilitation support services should therefore undertake together with the disabled person an extensive review of the client’s vocational background and an inventory of potential abilities and existing interests. Building on this an individual rehabilitation plan should then be drawn up which takes into account the potentialities, interests and requirements of the disabled person as well as the potential resources in his or her social environment.
A further area of work for the rehabilitation support services in this phase lies in the counselling of the disabled person with regard to any technical assistance, equipment, wheelchairs, artificial limbs, and so on which may be required. Use of this kind of technical assistance may at first be accompanied by rejection and refusal. Should a disabled person fail to receive the proper support and instruction during this initial phase, he or she may run the risk of the initial rejection escalating into a phobia which may later make it difficult to obtain the full benefit of the apparatus in question. In view of the wide variety of technical assistance nowadays available, the choice of such equipment must be made with the greatest care, tailored as far as possible to the individual needs of the disabled person. Ideally the selection of technical equipment required should also take into account both the disabled person’s vocational perspective and—as far as possible—the demands of the future workplace, given that the latter will also determine the purpose which the technical assistance must fulfil.
Vocational Rehabilitation
In the ILO “Convention (159) concerning vocational rehabilitation and employment (disabled persons)” adopted in 1983, the purpose of vocational rehabilitation is considered “as being to enable a disabled person to secure, retain and advance in suitable employment and thereby to further such person’s integration or reintegration into society”.
The past 30 years have seen rapid developments in vocational rehabilitation services for disabled persons. They include vocational assessment, which aims to get a clear picture of the person’s potential abilities; orientation courses to help the person to restore lost confidence in his or her abilities; vocational guidance, to develop a (new) vocational perspective and to choose a certain occupation; vocational training and retraining opportunities in the chosen field of activity; and placement services, designed to assist the disabled person in finding employment adapted to his or her disability.
A disabled person’s (re)entry into employment usually takes place via individual or combined vocational rehabilitation programmes, which can be carried out in different locations. It is the task of the rehabilitation support services to discuss with the disabled person whether the vocational qualification measure should be carried out in a mainstream institution for vocational training, in a specialized institution for vocational rehabilitation, by making use of community-based facilities or even directly in a normal workplace. The latter option is especially suitable when the previous job is still available and the workplace management have demonstrated their readiness in principle to rehire their former employee. However, in other cases cooperation with a regular workplace may already be a recommended option during the course of the vocational training, given that experience has shown that such cooperation also improves the chances of the participant subsequently being taken on by the firm. Thus in the case of vocational training in a vocational rehabilitation centre, it goes without saying that the support services should undertake the task of assisting disabled people in the search for possibilities of on-the-job practical training.
Of course these options for carrying out vocational rehabilitation measures cannot be seen separately from certain parameters and conditions which vary from country to country. Furthermore, the actual decision on the location of the vocational rehabilitation activity also depends on the kind of work envisaged and the type of disability, as well as on the disabled person’s social environment and the natural support potential available within it.
Wherever vocational rehabilitation takes place, it remains the task of the rehabilitation support services to accompany this process, to discuss together with the disabled person the experiences gained and to further extend the individual rehabilitation plan, adapting it to new developments as necessary.
Employment Support Services
Whereas medical and vocational rehabilitation in many countries can count on the support of a more or less extensive system of institutional settings, a comparable infrastructure for the promotion of the integration of disabled people into employment does not as yet exist even in some highly industrialized countries. And although various countries do have a number of quite successful models, some of which have been in existence for a number of years, employment services in most countries, with the exception of certain approaches in Australia, the United States, New Zealand and Germany, still do not form an integral part of national policy for disabled persons.
While the placement of disabled people into employment is an obligatory part of general labour administration in many countries, in view of the growing number of unemployed these institutions are less and less in a position to fulfil their obligations to place disabled people in work. This is exacerbated in many cases by a lack of appropriately qualified staff capable of doing justice to the abilities and wishes of the disabled person as well as to the requirements of the world of work. The creation of employment support services is also a reaction to the increasing lack of success of the traditional “train and place” approach implicit in institutionalized vocational rehabilitation. In spite of elaborate and often successful medical and vocational rehabilitation measures, integration into employment without additional assistance is becoming increasingly difficult.
It is at this point that the requirement for specific employment support services expresses itself. Wherever such services have been installed, they have been met by enormous demand from disabled persons and their families. This kind of service is particularly necessary and successful at the institutional interfaces between schools, rehabilitation institutions, sheltered workshops and other facilities for disabled persons on the one hand and the workplace on the other. However, the existence of employment support services also reflects the experience that many disabled people also require support and accompaniment not just in the phase of placement in employment, but also during the adjustment phase in the workplace. A number of larger firms have their own, internal employee assistance service, responsible for the integration of newly employed disabled people and for maintaining the jobs of disabled workers already employed.
Tasks of Employment Support Services
The primary intervention focus of the employment support services is on the critical threshold of entry into working life. Generally speaking, their task consists of creating links between the disabled person and the firm in question, that is, with the direct superior and future colleagues in the workplace.
Employment support services must on the one hand provide support for the disabled person in finding work. This takes place by means of self-confidence and (video supported) job interview training and assistance in the writing of letters of application, but also and primarily in placement in on-the-job practical training. All experiences have shown that such practical on-the-job training forms the most important bridge into the firm. Where necessary the services accompany the disabled person to job interviews, providing assistance with official paperwork and in the initial adjustment phase in the workplace. Lack of capacity means that most employment support services are unable to provide support beyond the confines of the workplace. However, in theory such support is also undesirable. To the extent that further assistance in the private sphere, whether psychological, medical or life-skills related in nature, is also required, it is usually provided by referral to the appropriately qualified facilities and institutions.
On the other hand, with regard to firms, the most important tasks of the support services consist initially of motivating an employer to take on a disabled person. Although many firms do have broad reservations about employing disabled people, it is still possible to find firms prepared to enter into continual cooperation with vocational rehabilitation facilities and employment support services. Once such a general readiness for cooperation has been identified or established, it is then a case of locating suitable jobs within the firm. Before any placement in the firm, there should of course be a comparison of the requirements of the job with the abilities of the disabled person. However, the time and energy occasionally spent in model projects which use supposedly “objective” procedures to compare differentiated ability and requirement profiles in order to work out the “optimal” job for a specific disabled person, usually bears no relation to the chances of success and the practical efforts involved in actually finding the job. It is more important to turn disabled persons into the agents of their own vocational development, since in terms of psychological significance we cannot place too high a value on the involvement of the persons concerned in the shaping of their own vocational future.
Placement approaches already elaborated attempt to build on detailed analyses of organizational structure and working procedure by making suggestions to the firm regarding the reorganization of certain working areas and hence to create work opportunities for disabled people. Such suggestions can include a reduction in certain working requirements, the creation of part-time work and flexible work times as well as the reduction of noise and stress in the workplace.
Employment support services also offer to assist firms in applying for public subsidies, such as wage subsidies, or in overcoming bureaucratic hurdles when applying for state grants for technical compensation for disability-related limitations. However, support for the disabled person in the workplace must not necessarily be only of a technical nature: people with visual impairment may under certain circumstances require not only a Braille keyboard for their computer and an appropriate printer, but also someone to read aloud for them; and persons with hearing impairment could be assisted through a sign-language interpreter. Sometimes support in acquiring the qualifications required for the job or in social integration into the firm will be necessary. These and other similar tasks are often undertaken by an employment support services worker designated as a “job coach”. The individualized support provided by the job coach decreases over time.
People with mental or psychiatric disabilities usually require a step-by-step integration with a gradual increase in work requirements, working hours and social contact, which has to be organized by the support services in cooperation with the firm and the disabled person.
For every form of support the maxim applies that it must be tailored to the individual requirements of the disabled person as well as harmonized with the firm’s own resources.
The Example of Supported Employment
Supported employment for persons with disabilities is a concept in which wage subsidies for the firms involved and individualized support services for disabled persons are connected with each other in order to achieve full integration into working life. This concept is particularly widespread in Australia and New Zealand, in various European countries and in the United States. It has so far primarily been used for the workplace integration of mentally and psychiatrically disabled people.
Employment support services undertake the placement of disabled people in a firm, organize the financial, technical and organizational support required by the firm and provide a job coach who accompanies the job-related and social integration of the disabled person into the firm.
The employer is thus relieved of all normally anticipated problems related to the hiring of disabled persons. As far as possible and necessary, the employment support services also undertake the required adaptations in the workplace and the disabled person’s immediate working environment. Occasionally it will be necessary for the applicant to receive additional training outside the firm, although instruction usually takes the form of on-the-job training by the job coach. It is also the job coach’s task to orient the colleagues and superiors in the technical and social support of the disabled person, since the aim in principle is to gradually reduce the professional assistance of the employment support service. It is, however, absolutely necessary that in the case of acute problems the employment support service should be present to provide continual assistance to the extent required. This means that support both for the disabled person and for the employer, the superior and colleagues, must be individualized and correspond to specific needs.
Cost-benefit analyses of this approach carried out in the United States have shown that although the initial integration phase is very intensive in terms of support provided and hence costs, the longer employment lasts, the more this investment is also justified from a financial point of view, not just for the disabled person, but also for the employer and the public budget.
Placement of disabled people by supported employment approaches is most common in relatively undemanding jobs, which tend to run the risk of being eliminated. The future of the supported employment approach will be decided not just by developments in the labour market but also by the further development of the concept.
Challenges for the Future of Employment Support Services
The following sections contain descriptions of a number of critical points whose significance for the further development of the concepts and for the practical work of employment support services should not be underestimated.
Networking with Vocational Rehabilitation Facilities and Firms
If employment support services are not to miss the mark in terms of what is actually required, a central task everywhere will be to create organic links with the existing vocational rehabilitation facilities. Integration services with no links to rehabilitation facilities run the risk—as experience has shown—of functioning primarily as instruments of selection and less as services for the vocational integration of disabled persons.
However, support services require not only networking and cooperation with vocational rehabilitation facilities, but also and more importantly, a clear positioning with regard to cooperation with firms. Under no circumstances should employment support services function merely as counselling services for disabled persons and their families; they must also be active in work-finding and placement services. Proximity to the labour market is the key to access to firms and ultimately to the possibilities of finding employment for disabled individuals. If these services’ access threshold to the firm is to be maximized, they must be situated as close as possible to actual economic activity.
Connections Between Qualification, Placement and Employment
An important part of all vocational integration efforts, and hence a central challenge for employment support services, is the coordination of vocational preparation and qualification with the requirements of the workplace—an aspect often still neglected. As justified as a criticism of the traditional “train and place” model may be, in practice just to first place and then provide training in the required skills is not enough either. Working under today’s conditions means not only having the so-called secondary working virtues at one’s disposal—punctuality, concentration and speed—but also a number of technical qualifications which are always required and which must already be present before employment can be started. Anything else would be asking too much, both of the persons to be placed and of the firms prepared to take them on.
Mobilizing Natural Support
The chances of the successful vocational integration of disabled people into the labour market increase with the possibility of organizing help and support, either in parallel to the work process or directly in the workplace. Especially in the initial adjustment phase it is important both to assist the disabled person in coping with the demands of work and also to provide support for those who make up the working environment. This form of accompanying assistance is usually provided by the employment support services. The integration of a disabled person will be all the more successful in the long term, the more this kind of professional help can be replaced by a mobilization of natural support in the firm, whether by colleagues or superiors. In a project recently carried out in Germany for the mobilization of natural support by so-called foster workers in the workplace, 42 disabled people were successfully integrated in the course of 24 months; over 100 firms were asked to participate. The project showed that few employees had the required level of knowledge and experience in dealing with disabled people. It thus appeared to be of strategic importance for the employment services to develop a conceptual framework in order to organize the replacement of professional support and the mobilization of natural support in the workplace. In the UK for example, employees prepared to act as foster workers for a certain time receive recognition in the form of a small financial reward.
Success Orientation and User Control
Finally, employment support services should also offer their own employees incentives to go into firms and bring about the placement of disabled people, for it is on these placement efforts within the firms that the central focus of the services must lie. Yet the placement of disabled people can be secured in the long term only when the funding of the employment support services and their employees is to a certain extent related to their success. How can service employees be motivated in a continual way to leave their institution, only to undergo the frustration of rejection in the firms? The placement of disabled people in employment is a difficult business. Where is the impetus to come from to battle doggedly and constantly against prejudice? All organizations develop their own interests, which are not necessarily in accord with those of their clients; all publicly funded institutions run the risk of becoming divorced from the needs of their clients. For this reason a corrective is required which creates general incentives—not just for employment support services but also for other social facilities—in the direction of the desired result.
A further necessary modification of the work of publicly funded social facilities consists of the users and their organizations having a say in matters relating to them. This culture of participation should also find an echo in the concepts behind the support services. In this context the services, like all other publicly funded institutions, should be subjected to regular control and evaluation by their clients—their users and their families—and last but not least by the firms cooperating with the services.
Concluding Remarks
Which and how many disabled persons can ultimately be integrated into the labour market by the activities of vocational rehabilitation and employment support services cannot be answered in the abstract. Experience shows that neither the degree of disability nor the situation on the labour market can be regarded as absolute limitations. The factors determining development in practice include not just the support services’ way of working and the situation on the job market, but also the dynamics arising within institutions and facilities for disabled persons, when this kind of employment option becomes a concrete possibility. In any case, experiences from various countries have shown that collaboration between employment support services and sheltered facilities tends to have considerable effect on the internal practices within these facilities.
People need perspectives, and motivation and development arise to the extent that perspectives exist or are created by new options. Important as the absolute number of placements realized by the employment support services is, of equal importance is the opening up of options for the personal development of disabled people made possible by the very existence of such services.