Over the past few months there has been a lot of publicity given to victims of various tragedies and incidents, for example, there have been the victims of the summer floods, the disappearance of Madeleine McCann and the parents of Rhys Jones. The majority of the support and public interest shown has been very positive and helpful towards these victims. This is probably because of the nature of the events which led up to the incidents and because it was not really the victims fault for what happened. They just happened to be caught up in a chain of events that happened outside of their control.

Blaming the victim.

A rationale for needs analysis and needs analysis research, Methodological issues in learner needs analysis, Language needs analysis at societal level, Foreign language needs assessment in the US military, Sources, methods and triangulation in needs analysis: A critical perspective in a case study of Waikiki hotel maids, Foreign language needs of business firms, Evaluating the use of multilple sources and methods in needs analysis: A case study of journalists in the Autonomous Community of Catalonia, A preliminary analysis of language provisions for foreign professional footballers in the Netherlands, A task-based needs analysis of a tertiary Korean as a foreign language program, Collecting target discourse: The case of the US naturalization interview, Service encounters in two coffee shops and at a coffee cart, When small talk is a big deal: scoiolinguistic challenges in the workplace

Second Language Needs Analysis

Despite national and state policies promoting integrated employment, the majority of adults with intellectual or developmental disabilities (76%) are served in facility-based programs. This article focuses on whether or not this gap between policy and practice is in part due to the lack of interest of adults with intellectual disabilities and their families for employment outside facility-based programs. Results are based on the answers given by 210 adults with intellectual disabilities in 19 sheltered workshops, their respective families or caregivers (N = 185), and staff members in these workshops (N = 224). Results show that the majority of respondents would either like employment outside sheltered workshops or at least consider it an option. Moreover, the majority of respondents believe that adults with intellectual disabilities can perform outside workshops, if support is made available if needed. It is noteworthy that the preference for employment outside of workshops is not associated with the severity of the disability. Based on these findings, this study supports the literature that advocates for system change policy promoting the employment of adults with intellectual disabilities in the general labor market.

Integrated employment or sheltered workshops: Preferences of adults with intellectual disabilities, their families, and staff

While much professional interest, public advocacy and media attention accompanied the neuroscientific research advances of the Decade of the Brain, much less prominence was accorded to the very considerable progress in psychiatric treatment, rehabilitation and community-based services for persons with schizophrenia. The increasing availability of evidence-based practices and more optimistic views of optimal outcomes possible in schizophrenia are of much practical importance to consumers and practitioners alike. Expectations for substantial improvements in a larger proportion of individuals with schizophrenia than heretofore are emerging on psychiatry's radar screen, especially in symptom control, psychosocial functioning and quality of life. We believe that it is now realistic to set as a goal for professionals and consumers the feasibility of recovery from schizophrenia for half or more of individuals with the first episode of schizophrenia. In this issue of the International Review of Psychiatry, we aim...

Recovery from schizophrenia: A challenge for the 21st century.

Purpose. Having a disability is a barrier to securing and maintaining employment. Most research has focussed on employment barriers among adults, while very little is known about young people's experience finding paid work.Method. Young people aged 15–24 were selected from the 2006 Participation and Activity Limitation Survey to explore the barriers and discrimination they experienced in seeking employment ((n  ==  1898)).Results. Our findings show that teens and young adults with disabilities encountered several barriers and discrimination in seeking paid employment. The types of barriers that these young people encountered varied by age and type of disability. There were fewer yet different types of barriers to working that were encountered between the two age groups ((teens and young adults)). Several socio-demographic factors also influenced barriers to working. Severity of disability, type and duration of disability, level of education, gender, low income, geographic location and the number of people...

Discrimination and other barriers to employment for teens and young adults with disabilities.

This article presents four case examples that illustrate various strategies used by agency personnel to promote job supports for employees with disabilities while minimizing the intrusion of suppor...

Natural Supports: Reconceptualizing Job Coach Roles.

By and large, supported employment services that emphasize individual rather than group placements have followed a particular program model widely known as the job coach model. In fact, the terms "job coaching" and "supported employment" have become so closely linked that many people are unaware that job coaching predated the supported employment movement by many years (e.g. Doanne & Valenti, 1977). In the job coach model, a rehabilitation agency staff person known as a job coach, job trainer, or employment specialist provides support services to employees with severe disabilities at community job sites. Job coaching includes (a) analyzing the task to be performed, (b) systematically teaching each element of the task, (c) collecting data, and (d) gradually fading to the cues and reinforcers in the natural setting. Job coaches may also teach job-related social skills and perform additional functions, including some that take place away from the employment site (Wehman & Melia, 1985). Job coaching has been an integral part of early supported employment demonstration projects (Boles, Bellamy, Horner, & Mank, 1984; Revell, Wehman, & Arnold, 1985) and has been refined and expanded in numerous publications and training manuals (e.g., Moon, Goodall, Barcus, & Brooke, 1986). Impressive demonstrations of the effectiveness of the job coach model as compared with previous employment services available to people with severe disabilities have, however been accompanied by a recognition that external intervention by human service personnel alone is insufficient as a source of community employment support. This recognition has resulted from at least three developments. First, the importance of personnel within the natural environment has been increasingly recognized. In one of the earliest descriptions of what is now known as supported employment, Wehman (1976) recommended the inclusion of co-workers in the process of training and fading. Reports of non-sheltered vocational training of employees with severe disabilities have included co-workers and supervisors as partners in the training process (e.g., Rusch & Mechetti, 1981). Recently, strategies for including co-workers more fully and earlier have been recommended and documented (Shafer, 1986; Shafer, Tait, Keen, & Jesiolowski, 1989). Second, since integration is one of the primary components of supported employment, facilitating integration has been one of the functions assigned to job coaches. But social integration has not always accompanied physical placement in natural settings, whether vocational, residential or educational. In a review of existing supported employment literature, Rusch, Chadsey-Rusch, and Johnson (1989) noted that interactions between work trainees and nonhandicapped personnel are consistently reported far more often with staff trainers than with co-workers. Chadsey-Rusch, Gonzalez, and Tines (1987) found that workers with mental retardation were less likely to engage in non-work related social interactions than their non-disabled co-workers. The facilitation of integration function of job coaches has received far less attention in the literature than has skills training. Recent evidence suggests that job coaching may, in some instances, actually restrict social integration. A participant-observation study of supported employment found that job coaches sometimes brought a human service perspective and a narrow job task focus to work settings and were unaware of, or ignored, the wider "culture" of workplaces (Hagner, 1989). Further, job coach training can impede the natural social processes by which experienced employees teach "the ropes" to new employees and socialize them into the culture of the setting, and can project the message that some special expertise is required to interact with employees with severe disabilities. Such processes tend to put social distance between supported employees and their fellow employees. …

Facilitating Natural Supports in the Workplace: Strategies for Support Consultants

Part of the shift in society's response to disability from institutional care toward community inclusion has included an increasing emphasis on individual choice, empowerment, and self-determination (Hagner & Marrone, 1995; Silverstein, 2000; Wolf-Branigan, Daeschlein, Cardinal & Twiss, 2000). Wehmeyer (2002) conceptualized implementation of sell-determination as occurring on two levels. At the individual level, it is necessary to define and assess self-determined behavior and develop instructional and other interventions to increase self-determined behavior. At the political or systemic level, change is required to reform agency control over dollars and tending streams in order to enable individuals to implement their decisions and support individual control. Several specific reforms have been proposed to operationalize these concepts. One important focus concerns developing new personal planning structures that give individuals with disabilities increased opportunities to develop expansive personal goals and aspirations. Traditional service planning has been criticized for remaining heavily dominated by professional interests (Cooney, 2002; Menchetti & Garcia, 2003), restricting plans to currently available agency services (Thoma, Rogan & Baker, 2001), and for often viewing self-determined choices as a "privilege" to be earned through compliance with programming (Cook & Jonikas, 2002). Person-centered planning has emerged as a promising tool for facilitating increased levels of self-determined choice (Wehmeyer, 2002). Person-centered planning is a facilitative approach used to guide individuals through a series of structured planning sessions designed to help clarify desired outcomes, discover capacities and possibilities for natural supports, and identify reasonable and progressive actions needed to achieve identified goals (Mount, 1992; Pearpoint, O'Brien & Forest, 1993). Person-centered planning has been useful in assisting individuals with disabilities to experience more control of the planning process and in achieving career outcomes more consistent with their preferences (Menchetti & Garcia, 2003). As an inductive, qualitative process, person-centered planning explores subjective interpretations and personal meanings in a way that helps establish the individual as the "owner" of his or her plan (Okocha, 1998). In addition, the use of significant others as supports for brainstorming and plan development that is one of the key components of person-centered planning has been associated with enhancing informed choice for individuals who require assistance with decision-making (Hagen-Foley, Rosenthal, & Thomas, 2005). Person-centered planning is also a flexible process that can be used for ongoing planning as circumstances and interests change. A demonstration of an employment choice model in a rehabilitation agency (Wolf-Brannigan, Daeschlein, Cardinal & Twiss, 2000) reported high levels of consumer satisfaction with person-centered planning. Another key component in shifting the focus of planning from agencies and systems to the individual is a reconceptualization of the role of the service coordinator or case manager. Coffey (2003) and Williams and Swartz (1998) noted that the multiple and complex roles of traditional frequently introduce dynamics of case manager power and control over individuals. Turnbull and Turnbull (2001) and Blumberg, Ferguson and Ferguson (2000) recommended that case management be replaced by a role they call "independent service brokerage" with no organizational or systems allegiances. Demonstrations of independent service brokerage, primarily in relation to individuals with developmental disabilities, have to date been sporadic and informal (Smith, 2003). Wolf-Brannigan, Daeschlein, Cardinal and Twiss (2000) designed a choice demonstration project that featured "employment advisors" who were directly employed by consumers. …

Choice and Control over Resources: New Hampshire's Individual Career Account Demonstration Projects

One of the most significant advances in vocational rehabilitation services has been the recent supported employment movement. Amendments to the Rehabilitation Act (P.L. 99-506) define supported employment as competitive work in integrated work settings for individuals with severe disabilities for whom competitive employment has not traditionally occurred and who, because of their disability, need intensive, ongoing services to perform such work. Currently, 27 states are implementing supported employment programs given grants from the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) and the Administration on Developmental Disabilities. Of particular importance to the supported employment movement was the recognition of supported work as a legitimate vocational rehabilitation outcome. Changes are occurring nationwide, allowing less restrictive vocational options for those previously segregated. Integrated work options for individuals with severe disabilities have evolved as the result of many factors. Among these factors has been a dissatisfaction with low placement rates, low wages, and other limitations of sheltered services; advances in the preparatory nature of school vocational training programs; and demonstrations of the vocational potential of individuals with severe disabilities (Kieman & Stark, 1986; Rusch, 1986; Mcloughlin, Gamer, & Callahan, 1987). Some supported employment programs have evolved through the establishment of new agencies or through the conversion of existing agencies from sheltered to supported work services. More commonly, supported employment services have been offered as additional services to those of existing agencies. In either case, supported employment programs operate within an overall vocational rehabilitation structure that was created long before supported employment, as we know it today, existed. As a result, many difficult issues are currently being faced in relation to blending the features of an existing service system with emerging beliefs and practices. One particularly critical aspect of the vocational rehabilitation system that poses a dilemma for supported employment is vocational evaluation. Traditional vocational evaluation assumptions and practices have been called into question when applied to supported employment candidates (Gold, 1980; Wehman, 1981). The purpose of this paper is to examine these traditional approaches and offer an evaluation model that is compatible with the underlying principles of supported employment. Problems with Traditional Evaluation Vocational evaluation can be defined as any activities designed to: (a) describe an individual and his or her functioning needs; (b) specify the outcomes to be achieved through rehabilitation; and (c) identify the interventions and services required to achieve those outcomes (Berven, 1984). There are at least five features of traditional vocational evaluation that have been called into question by supported employment practitioners. The first involves the use of the vocational evaluation process as a screening device to select or reject individuals considered able or unable to benefit from vocational services (Berven, 1984). The use of vocational evaluation procedures and instruments has resulted in the exclusion of many individuals with severe disabilities from the labor market (Rudrud, Ziarnik, Bernstein, & Ferrara, 1984). This problem was underscored by Schalock and Karan (1979) who noted: There is little evidence suggesting that changes in traditional psychological and vocational assessment practices have occurred (Karan, 1977). At present, perhaps because other alternatives simply do not exist, vocational rehabilitation agencies are using assessment procedures originally developed for less handicapped individuals and are applying them invalidly to the more severely handicapped. Thus, one must constantly wonder how many severely handicapped persons, who might otherwise become useful, productive, and employable, will continue being either underserved of even eliminated from further VR consideration as a consequence of inappropriate assessment practices (p. …

Vocational Evaluation in Supported Employment

Assessment is a critical step in the vocational rehabilitation process that sets the stage for subsequent training and placement activities and other rehabilitation services (Institute on Rehabilitation Issues, 2003b; Power, 2006a). The scope and variety of assessment practices has expanded significantly in recent years, primarily as a result of three important developments. First, renewed emphasis on consumer choice and empowerment in rehabilitation has lead to a reconceptualization of assessment as a more collaborative process (Institute on Rehabilitation Issues, 2003b; Power, 2006a). Consumers are encouraged and expect to take an active role in identifying areas in need of assessment, selection of assessment approaches, and interpretation of results (Power, 2006b). Second, the emphasis on serving individuals with more significant disabilities has placed new demands on consumer assessment. There are individuals with severe and multiple impairments for whom standard testing practices, even with extensive accommodations, simply do not work (Grasso, Jitendra, Browder & Harp, 2004; Ysseldyke & Olsen, 1999). This has led to efforts to align assessment modalities with the principles of universal design (Iwarsson & Stahl, 2003) so that individuals are not excluded or short-changed. And finally, the emphasis in rehabilitation is shifting from single job matching to a more holistic and longitudinal focus on careers (Hagner, 2000; Rumrill & Roessler, 1999). Jepsen (1994) pointed out that many traditional assessment practices are associated with a trait-and-factor matching process more appropriate to a single job placement than to the holistic process of career planning. This article describes naturalistic assessment as a particularly important family of rehabilitation assessment tools consistent with these developments. The article examines the use of naturalistic assessment options in the rehabilitation process, discusses the complementary strengths and weaknesses of naturalistic versus traditional standardized testing approaches to assessment, and examines the implications of an increased focus on naturalistic assessment for rehabilitation counselors and vocational evaluators. Naturalistic Assessment Naturalistic assessment can be defined as the assessment of performance on real-world tasks and observation of responses in natural contexts (Gulikers, Bastiaens & Kirschner, 2004). On this definition, categorizing an assessment as "naturalistic" involves consideration of both the data collection and the data analysis process. The data collected for naturalistic assessment consists of behaviors and responses that have meaning independent of the assessment context. For example, when performance on a job in the community is used for assessment purposes, the work tasks being performed are real-world tasks that would be performed "naturally" and have meaning independent of the assessment. Similarly, when a consumer responds to open-ended interview questions about leisure activities, favorite vacations and so on, the individual's recall of relevant behaviors and responses in those natural contexts generates the data. Answering questions on a standardized test, by contrast, is non-naturalistic, because the test taker selecting response options provided by the test developer has no meaning beyond the assessment context. Data analysis is naturalistic when the behavior or responses being assessed are considered directly, without being transformed or filtered. For example, a summary of themes about interests that emerges from an open-ended interview is naturalistic. Non-naturalistic analysis generates scores or profiles after responses are transformed, typically by comparison with the responses of a norm group, and are reported as standardized scores. A third element sometimes associated with naturalistic assessment is the use of individuals to interpret a sample of behavior who are "naturally" in a position to judge; that is, people authorized to make, or who ordinarily make, similar judgments in real life (Jordan & Putz, 2004). …

David Hagner

Papers

Natural Supports: Reconceptualizing Job Coach Roles.

Facilitating Natural Supports in the Workplace: Strategies for Support Consultants

Choice and Control over Resources: New Hampshire's Individual Career Account Demonstration Projects

Vocational Evaluation in Supported Employment

The Role of Naturalistic Assessment in Vocational Rehabilitation