Supported Employment

Supported Employment refers to service provisions wherein people with disabilities, including intellectual disabilities, mental health, and traumatic brain injury, among others, are assisted with obtaining and maintaining employment originally through the primary models of job crews, enclaves, or the often preferred job coach or person-centered approaches. Supported employment is considered to be one form of employment in which wages are expected, together with benefits from an employer in a competitive workplace, though some versions refer to disability agency paid employment.

Supported employment was developed in the United States in the 1970s as part of both vocational rehabilitation (VR) services (e.g., NYS Office of Vocational Services, 1978) and the advocacy for long term services and supports (LTSS) for individuals with significant disabilities in competitive job placements in integrated settings (e.g., businesses, offices, manufacturing facilities). Since the mid-1980s, supported employment in the professional literature primarily has referred to the "individual placement" model, either with job coaches or through "natural supports" models. The critical issue in supported employment (SE) was viewed as the need for funding for long-term services and supports (LTSS) in the community often termed beyond "case closure" (Griffin, Test, Dalton, & Wood, 1995). Supported employment is worldwide in 2013, though moving to new inclusive models, and the term has been used for assisting workers of diverse kinds who may need an extra jump start in the workplace; it is still associated with its roots in disability which includes community integration and deinstitutionalization

Supported Employment came from the community non-profit sector as an effort with government to offer services to individuals with significant disabilities, some of whom were moving from institutional life, in local communities for "supported work" (around the late 1970s). Community personnel entered rehabilitation programs, for degrees, and began an academic professionalization of the fields. Supported employment (SE) was on the rise nationally in the US in 1985 with growing university support, new dedicated agencies and programs, and preparation of master's and doctoral students in rehabilitation and education (e.g., Syracuse University, Rehabilitation Counseling, and Social Policy degrees). As an example, Thomas Bellamy, Larry Rhodes and Jay Albin of Oregon prepared a new chapter titled Supported Employment which indicated its uniqueness as having no entry requirement and no minimum ability levels (unheard of in vocational programs) in order to include candidates regardless of the nature or degree of their disability".

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