This interview between Mark Laird, statewide employment specialist with Missouri Rehabilitation Services for the Blind, and Gil Johnson, director of American Foundation for the Blind West, describes an innovative rehabilitation model that forges relationships with businesses and has doubled the number of consumers with visual impairments who find…

A model to guide the search for types of performance deficiencies is set forth within the general framework of systems theory. Five types of problems, singly or in combination, are discussed as causes of deficiencies. (Author)

This paper defines natural workplace supports for individuals with severe disabilities and proposes a working model for future research and practice. Emphasis is placed on natural supports as an outcome of successful employment rather than a distinct model for support and as a contributing factor to the quality of life. (Author/CR)

A placement counselor offers his personal guidelines for a vocational placement process to serve blind individuals. Guidelines address the counselor's value system; the functional limitations of visual impairment and adaptive options; and the role of the employing agency in enhancing counselors' motivation for placement. A model placement policy…

Traditionally, disabled persons have received vocational training in sheltered workshops and after evaluation have been placed into work activity, extended sheltered employment, or transitional employment programs. Transition then to competitive employment is atypical for persons with severe disabilities. Their employment situation has improved…

The article discusses the provisions and intent of Title II of the Education Amendments Act of 1976 relating to job placement and employer satisfaction. In evaluating the success of vocational education programs student and employer follow-up data will play an important part. (MF)

Although disabled students need the same comprehensive assistance in making the transition from school to work as their nondisabled counterparts, most disabled youth, and particulary those with severe disabilities, do not receive adequate assistance in this area. This situation can be remedied by approaching the transition to employment as a…

As part of a series of topic papers assessing federal laws and programs affecting persons with disabilities, this paper focuses on employment programs and initiatives. Described are (1) the transition model of the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS), which emphasizes a solid educational foundation and adequate…

In times of economic recession, dollars for job training and job placement programs grow scarcer, and those that are available tend to go to middle-class workers who are displaced or temporarily unemployed. The structurally unemployed--primarily the poor, the less educated, and minority youth--find it harder to compete for the needed training, and…

The federal government needs to provide employment and training assistance to help dislocated workers to become reemployed. Worker mobility assistance should not be focused upon as a major thrust of reemployment programs, since American workers are remarkably resistant to pressures to move to more promising labor markets. Efficient and effective…

This collection of comments consists of four chapters of informal remarks by trustees, educators, and students from various types and sizes of institutions with innovative mainstreaming programs for handicapped students in postsecondary vocational education programs. Chapter 1 contains comments by nine individuals (students and administrators) on…

This report examines various vocational rehabilitation models that serve American Indians and Alaska Natives with disabilities, with examples and case studies to demonstrate how the models work in real client-counselor situations. Stressed throughout is the importance of issues of cultural diversity, cultural competency, and self-determination.…

This collection of articles on vocational guidance and counseling is one of the NATCON series produced by the Canadian Employment and Immigration Commission to improve the methodology of vocational guidance and employment counseling. Ten articles are included in the book. They cover the following subjects: a processing of counseling psychology for…

This compendium is designed to present the relationship of the rehabilitation process to vocational education; to examine the cooperative roles of vocational education, rehabilitation, and special education; and to identify the trends that will have an impact on the planning for future training needs. Included in the volume are the following…

Evidence from the past 4 years confirms that private sector jobs are the best and first resort for welfare recipients seeking to enter the workforce and that the private sector can well absorb the entry of these new workers. The model of wage-based transitional employment may be a more effective means of helping hard-to-employ welfare recipients…