Increasing opportunities for youth with disabilities

Thursday, June 11, 2009 -

An increasing number of people are having a tough time finding and keeping a job in this economy. Imagine the employment challenge faced by those with an intellectual or emotional disability.

According to the Cornell University Employment and Disability Institute, 43 percent of non-institutionalized Wisconsin citizens with disabilities [define] were employed in 2007; the national figure is 36 percent.

But only 10 percent of adults with significant intellectual disabilities have meaningful employment, according to special education experts at UW-Madison.

A group of faculty, students and staff associated with UW-Madison’s Department of Rehabilitation Psychology and Special Education have been confronting this problem through Project Summer, a long-term research-service project.

Funded by a three-year project development grant from the U.S. Department of Education, Project Summer aims to establish relationships, connections and tools to link youth with significant disabilities to employment and other service opportunities in their communities.

Youth with disabilities are most likely to hold a job after graduation if they have gained work experience while still in high school. Summer is an optimal time for gaining such experience, but, during summer, students lack the school structure and systems to keep them on track.

The research on transition services for students with disabilities has not produced much data on employment and community activities during the summer.

“We call it ‘the other three months,’” says Erik Carter, assistant professor of special education and Project Summer’s principal investigator.

Carter and two colleagues — Audrey Trainor, UW-Madison assistant professor of special education, and Laura Owens, UW-Milwaukee associate professor — have been leading a team studying employment trends among youth with disabilities in selected Wisconsin communities.

The team — which includes graduate and undergraduate students and staff — set out to develop a practical, effective intervention package that schools and communities can easily adopt.

“What we’re trying to do is get students early work experience,” says Carter, adding that the team is not finding jobs for individuals, but setting up a system that communities can sustain.

The team interviewed about 130 students, along with their parents, to learn how they spend their time, especially in summer; to determine the students’ goals and interests (they wanted to work); and to identify which services and opportunities they do and don’t use.

The team found that about 15 percent of the students with significant intellectual disabilities worked, volunteered and/or actively participated in community activities, and about 40 percent of students with emotional-behavioral disabilities (EBDs) were working or otherwise active.

Based on the students’ reasons for their level of engagement and on conversations with teachers, employers and community leaders, the team designed an intervention program that involves creation of a community-based system to improve the students’ chances for employment and community involvement.

The team piloted that system with a small group of communities with about 60 students in the target group, through the summer 2008. They tracked two groups — students with severe intellectual disabilities and students with EBDs.

Half of the students in each group received intervention services and half didn’t, to see if the intervention made a difference in their employment experience. With help, students with intellectual disabilities were four to five times more likely to work, but the intervention made little difference for students with EBDs.

Improving outcomes for EBDs was more difficult, likely because they resist identifying themselves as having a disability, Carter says. The team will need to adjust the intervention strategy for that group, he says.

“We need to take this to a much bigger level,” he says, adding that the investigative team is seeking a larger grant to work with more schools and communities.

Carter also wants to track the students to see if they achieve their employment goals in the years after high school.

Project Summer also is about extracurricular involvement – assessing ways these kids participate in their communities and involvements that promote inclusion and peer relationships. Practicing what it preaches, the investigative team practices hired two students with disabilities to work on project.

-- by Rebecca Quigley

To learn more about Project Summer, go online to www.projectsummer.info

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