Does supported employment work?

Abstract

Providing employment-related services, including supported employment through job coaches, has been a priority in federal policy since the enactment of the Developmental Disabilities Assistance and Bill of Rights Act in 1984. We take advantage of a unique panel data set of all clients served by the SC Department of Disabilities and Special Needs between 1999 and 2005 to investigate whether job coaching leads to stable employment in community settings. The data contain information on individual characteristics, such as IQ and the presence of emotional and behavioral problems, that are likely to a¤ect both employment propensity and likelihood of receiving job coaching. Our results show that unobserved individual characteristics and endogeneity strongly bias naive estimates of the e¤ects of job coaching. However, even after correcting for these biases, an economically and statistically signi…cant treatment e¤ect remains.JEL codes: J29, I38, J14

The association between employment and the health of people with intellectual disabilities: A systematic review

“…Lower emotional and/or behavioural problems have been associated with the employment status of people with intellectual disabilities (Martorell, Gutierrez-Recacha, Pereda, & Ayuso-Mateos, 2008;McDermott, Martin, & Butkus, 1999;McInnes, Ozturk, McDermott, & Mann, 2010;Siperstein et al, 2014), as have absence of psychiatric symptoms (Martorell et al, 2008) and having fewer health problems (McDermott et al, 1999). Whilst some studies have found no association between health and/or mental health and employment outcomes (Faubion & Andrew, 2000;Moore, Feist-Price, & Alston, 2002;White & Weiner, 2004), in two of these studies receipt of employment-related services or training predicted employment (Moore et al, 2002;White & Weiner, 2004), suggesting that health-related barriers to obtaining employment may be addressed through appropriate service provision or training.…”

“…Lower emotional and/or behavioural problems have been associated with the employment status of people with intellectual disabilities (Martorell, Gutierrez-Recacha, Pereda, & Ayuso-Mateos, 2008;McDermott, Martin, & Butkus, 1999;McInnes, Ozturk, McDermott, & Mann, 2010;Siperstein et al, 2014), as have absence of psychiatric symptoms (Martorell et al, 2008) The majority of the studies in this review are cross-sectional, and as such, it is not possible to attribute causality. Even in the best-quality longitudinal study identified, the authors note that they cannot confirm the direction of the relationship between change in behaviour and day occupation .…”

Employment outcomes and support needs of Michigan Project SEARCH graduates with intellectual and developmental disabilities: A mixed-method study

“…As an additional component of follow-along and retention support, participants' positive or negative appraisals of job coaches are critical for graduates' successful adjustment and retention at work (Cheng et al, 2018;McInnes et al, 2010;Parsons et al, 2001). Despite the importance of job coach support, especially during the initial period of employment, job coaches rarely receive meaningful training or support for providing vocational skills instructions and effective support to students with disabilities (Gilson et al, 2021;Rogan & Held, 1999).…”

Counselor perceived barriers and supports to employment

“…This was true when looking at the supports scale overall, and also the subscales of the supports scale independently (i.e., personal supports and environmental supports). Specific perceived individual supports such as self-efficacy (Guay, Ratelle, Senecal, Larose, & Deschenes, 2006), education, job training (Kalil, Schweingruber, & Seefeldt, 2001), positive health (Edin & Lein, 2007), rehabilitation services such as benefits counseling (Tremblay, Smith, Xie, & Drake, 2006) and supported employment (Kregel, 2007;McInnes, Ozturk, McDermot, & Mann, 2010), managed stress, and psychiatric stability (Kalil et al, 2001) were hypothesized to be lower in rural areas, due numerous previous literature that references lack of education, job training opportunities (United States Department of Agriculture, 2015), and increased rates of individuals with disability/ies with little access to services (Reichart, Greiman & Myers, 2014) in rural areas. While past literature references such supports to be lower in rural areas, counselors in this sample did not perceive this in their responses.…”