Employment First

by Dora Raymaker · 2009-01-17 11:00:00 UTC
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a man and a woman working together over a laptop computerI was sent an interesting memorandum in email, which I fortunately then found on a public web site so I can share it with y'all. The memorandum is from Neil Romano, Assistant Secretary of the Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP), part of the U.S. Department of Labor. And the subject reads, "'EMPLOYMENT FIRST' CREATING OPPORTUNITIES TO MOVE TO INTEGRATED EMPLOYMENT." The topic here being fair employment opportunities for people with developmental disabilities and high support needs--the ability to work for competitive (not sub-minimum wage) pay and benefits without losing access to the supports and services necessary to lead a healthy life. Goodness, if I could get that I'd stop most of my griping here!

The ODEP plan isn't an agency like vocational rehabilitation which I griped about earlier this week, but a policy approach called "Employment First," described on the ODEP site as, "under which employment is considered the first service provided to individuals with intellectual disabilities and the goal for all." For a summary of the core issues, be sure to scroll about half way down the page, to the text that is titled "Executive Summary" and read the sections "Introduction" and "Background."

The letter then points to another page with promises of more information, which unfortunately does not appear to have been posted yet (as of this entry). But I did find an example of an Employment First policy being considered in California which looks really good at first glance. Two huge problems in my life are the work-or-support Awful Choice and pitiful lack of integration between services (e.g. the work people not understanding how difficult it is for me to manage daily living, and the daily living people not taking into account the hours I spend coping with work, etc.). It seems at least some attempt is made to address both of these issues in the California Employment First policy. I was also very pleased to see a number of self-advocacy organizations in support of the policy.

Tennessee and New Hampshire (and possibly others) appear to have had success with the Employment First approach. I'm not going to shout "hooray all our employment woes are over!" until I've seen more come of this, but I will be continuing to research and watch very carefully for the keywords "Employment First" from now on.

Dora Raymaker
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