Yesterday’s post showed advocates in Wisconsin at odds over the best approach for providing career training and employment opportunities to people with disabilities. The Badger State is not alone in its efforts to evolve service for this underserved population, as Beth Miller reports in her in-depth article for The News Journal of Delaware, published on November 5.
As noted in the story’s sub-header, Delaware has not revised its policies governing services for people with disabilities in 30 years. Some individuals have been employed in the same contract services division of Elwyn Delaware for that entire length of time, performing manual labor tasks that include sorting and recycling old X-rays and assembling medals for the U.S. military.
The state’s new director of Developmental Disabilities Services, Jane Gallivan, is implementing a plan that will allow a gradual transition toward community-based employment services without eliminating existing services if that’s what is desired by the individuals and their families. She tells Miller:
For people with developmental disabilities, the options have been pretty slim for many years. They either went to an institution or stayed at home with their families… This system is trying to deal with people who have had all kinds of experiences… We want to make sure people are receiving the services appropriate for them, the services they want.
“Appropriate services” include career counseling and training programs for those individuals who can make the transition to community-based employment, says Gallivan. Delaware is designated as an “Employment First” state, a program that makes inclusion of people with disabilities in the workforce a priority. What’s more, Governor Jack Markell has made advancing employment of people with disabilities his mission as chairman of the National Governor’s Association. To have such an antiquated system of support in his own home state does not set the right example for the other state’s Markell hopes to persuade during his year-long tenure leading the NGA.
Gallivan comes to Delaware after having served a similar role in Maine, where private businesses including multinational companies like Proctor & Gamble are tapping into contract service organization to perform a wide variety of assembly and fulfillment duties. Miller writes that Gallivan thus far has spent the bulk of her time meeting with people with disabilities and their families to hear what their needs and concerns are with regards to the current system. An online commenter named Jacqueline Davis-Lukaszewicz writes that she has two sons in the current system and the main issue for her is the lack of uniform standards for the service providers:
All job coaches, and alike should operate and be evaluated by the same yard stick. If you don’t like the name of ‘sheltered workshop’ fine change it but a name change won’t change how the program runs… [N]o one size fits all, so please use your voice to keep what works for your loved one, but stand up for proper standards no matter where they are in the system.
Share your thoughts in the comments section.
Image by MPD01605.