by Larry Johnson
I write this in response to and in support of Mary Irving’s comments and concerns as expressed in the “From Your Perspective” column of the August 2000 issue of “The Braille Forum.” In order to achieve positive employment outcomes for blind and visually impaired consumers in this time of unparalleled economic prosperity, state vocational rehabilitation agencies must modify and improve their traditional approaches to assisting people who are blind and visually impaired.
For example, our state agency for the blind in Texas boasts that it has one of the best reputations in the country for placing blind and visually impaired persons in jobs. Yet translating their record into real numbers reveals that less than 5 percent of Texas consumers who are served under its VR program (less than 600 persons a year) are successfully placed in competitive employment.
We are currently experiencing here in Texas, and in the nation, one of the lowest unemployment rates in over a generation. Yet blind and visually impaired individuals simply are not sharing in this employment boom. National studies indicate that among working age adults in the U.S. who are totally blind or have severe visual impairments, 74 percent are not employed. Clearly more needs to be done. Methods and approaches typically used by state VR agencies for the blind need to be reviewed, modified and improved. The same old, same old traditional bureaucratic way of doing things has to change. VR executive staff need to take a fresh approach. They need to become more creative, innovative, pro-active and solution-oriented in order to meet the challenge of persistent, chronic, high unemployment among visually impaired Americans.
Here are just a few possible suggestions:
1. Establish internship programs for visually impaired individuals to give them opportunities to gain experience and to practice and develop relevant on-the-job skills.
2. Contract with private, local employment placement specialists — not just lighthouses — to assist with job training and placement of qualified visually impaired applicants.
3. Work closely with the state workforce commissions to make their services and job listing information more accessible to visually impaired people and train both state VR staff and consumers in accessing and using these services and information.
4. Liaison with the various independent living centers which provide employment placement services within their respective states to ensure that visually impaired consumers are benefitting from those services as well as the disabled populations traditionally served by such centers.
5. Work with the Social Security Administration and the state department of human services to provide informational programs to SSI and SSDI recipients on the advantages and procedures involved in their transitioning from the welfare rolls to the status of gainful employment.
6. Set up toll-free 800 job information line services to operate during evening and weekend hours to provide consumers with names and contact information for state agencies which have immediate job openings.
Finally, states might do well to mirror the initiative launched by President Clinton, through his Executive Order, to establish a federal task force on unemployment of adults with disabilities. He has charged every federal agency to review and evaluate its programs and make recommendations to the task force on how each respective program could be modified or changed to eliminate barriers to employment for persons with disabilities. Something of a similar nature, established within each state, could be tremendously beneficial.
Here, within Texas, according to our state agency’s own statistical estimates, there are well over half a million Texans classified as blind or visually impaired. More than half of these citizens are in the age range of 13 to 64. Admittedly, that’s a lot of people to serve. And with the growing fiscal constraints at both the federal and state levels, the challenge is even greater. It is time that executive staff at state agencies for the blind around the country stop patting themselves on the back for the “great job” they have done. Instead, they need to face up to the reality and magnitude of the problem of unemployment among blind and visually impaired individuals and become prepared to offer some new ideas and initiatives.