Closing the Shop: Conversion from Sheltered to Integrated Work. - book reviews

American Rehabilitation, Spring, 1996 by Judith E. Heumann

There is probably no group in the United States more in need of the provision of timely, well-planned, and effective rehabilitation and employment services than the 69 percent of unemployed people with disabilities who are of working age. By contrast, only 19.7 percent of people without disabilities are unemployed. Discrimination is often a significant part of the lives of people with disabilities, and physical, psychological, social, and attitudinal barriers abound. All of these factors can effectively stifle equal opportunities and preclude the ability to strive for independence for many people with disabilities in the United States.

To help lower the historically high unemployment rate for people with disabilities, various strategies for achieving successful employment outcomes have been developed:

* the state-federal vocational rehabilitation (VR) program, which is aimed at achieving integrated employment through a variety of rehabilitation strategies;

* sheltered employment; and

* supported employment with its various models.

Sheltered employment was developed when there were no laws prohibiting discrimination against individuals with disabilities in the employment market and when adults with disabilities who wanted to enter the employment arena were excluded. Sheltered workshops, like most segregated education programs, were a way to prove that people with disabilities could indeed work and learn. Sheltered programs were not envisioned to develop into industries that precluded people with disabilities from being integrated into society and all facets of community life. If we had believed in the past what we believe today-that people with significant disabilities can work in integrated settings with appropriate supports -- sheltered workshops might never have evolved. Now we are in the position of having to convert sheltered programs to reflect more modem thinking.

Options in this regard have met with varying degrees of success over time, and no one option is right for everyone. There has long been a debate in the rehabilitation community regarding the value of sheltered employment versus that of integrated employment. Some people believe that sheltered employment perpetuates institutionalized behavior" on the part of people with disabilities, but others believe that a positive sheltered work experience is better than no work experience at all. In terms of integrated employment, many proponents believe that individuals who have been mainstreamed improve their occupational success rates because they have typical citizens as their role models.

This leads purportedly to more "normalized" work behaviors and fuller integration into the community. Additionally, professionals in the rehabilitation community have stated that because more and more individuals with severe disabilities have been mainstreamed during their years in school, they are consequently much better prepared for integrated employment.

Given the imperfections that exist in our society, there may be truth in both points of view. Closing the Shop, then, adds yet another chapter to this complex and important inquiry, examining all aspects of the issues involving agency conversion from sheltered to integrated employment models.

This book accepts the premise that with the right tools and the right knowledge, many sheltered settings can undergo a process of conversion that with allow them to offer the same level of support in a more integrated environment. The concept of conversion involves restructuring a rehabilitation agency's program and changing its focus from segregated, sheltered employment to mainstream, integrated employment -- a complex and difficult process.

Among the issues involved for a nonprofit agency to convert or restructure the way in which its programs operate are:

* retraining staff regarding a new way of providing services for individuals with disabilities in work settings, and

* recognizing the accompanying need to be sensitive to a business' needs. Also, funding issues are significant to nonprofit agencies as they undertake conversion, in that funding sources are often different or nonexistent for integrated employment programs. In addition, the work in integrated settings is more labor intensive and individualized and is likely to be more costly. Furthermore, the management aspects of dealing with staff who are based in a multitude of locations with a myriad of competing problems is a challenge to nonprofit agency managers and supervisors.

This book addresses actual examples of agency conversion and documents the experiences of people with disabilities and other stakeholders during the conversion process. Certainly, in applying the material contained in this book to the variety of specific settings that now exist, its precepts and methods will be useful to some and breakthrough experiences for others.

Closing the Shop (1995). Stephen T. Murphy and Patricia M. Rogan. Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., P.O. Box 1624, Baltimore, MD 21285-0624. 221 pages Softcover, $26.