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DISABILITY CROWD PRESENTS FEDERAL AGENCIES LAUNDRY LIST OF TRANSITION NEEDSJune 24, 2000WASHINGTON - A half-dozen federal agencies left the two-day National Transition Summit on Young People with Disabilities this week with a list of specific goals the disability community is targeting to improve transition services for students. They also were handed a list of demands for federal assistance. The impetus for the summit was primarily that fact that only 27 percent of students in special education graduated high school with a diploma from 1996 through 1998, while an average of 17 percent of students in special education dropped out of school each year.
Nearly every group at the meeting asked for more federal money for new or existing projects, despite the struggle in Washington to maintain funding levels for many programs. Before Congress will spend more money to streamline and integrate agency transition efforts for students with disabilities, state and local agencies and organizations must demonstrate that progress is being made on current projects, Susan Daniels, deputy commissioner for the Social Security Administration's Disability and Income Security Programs, explained. "There are very few barriers existing today in federal statutes," she said. "Programs and services at the state level are being more integrated, more seamless and more one-stop-ish.... What's really lacking here is the political will of the states to take on some of the one-stop issues." If Congress is to allocate more federal money, the impetus for that spending must come from grassroots lobbying through one unified voice, she added. At the federal agencies, "we spend whatever we have, and we have whatever you get us," Daniels told the summit participants. "The Congress doesn't care a hoot about what any of us [federal agency staffers] sitting up here say.... What they care about is what you think, because they can't keep their jobs unless you let them keep their jobs."
Beyond Money The groups at the meeting, which included employers, parents, state agencies, advocacy groups and others, acknowledged that money is not the sole answer to the continually low graduation and employment rates among people with disabilities. Equally important is the need to streamline current transition services, coordinate efforts by education, health care, employment and independent living organizations and educate the general public on the current situation, they said. Nearly 60 percent of all summit attendees said creating and improving school-employer partnerships is the best way to increase the employment rate of young people with disabilities. In response, the employers group, which consisted of only three participants, said it is willing to work on educating other employers and employment groups about school-to-career initiatives and how they benefit companies. However, the group argued schools need to understand better what employers need, including what skills students should have when entering the workforce. To that end, the employers said they want to be more involved in curriculum planning. Curricula in each state must be more flexible, to include the development of life skills and career skills based on individual student needs, the state education agency participants added. Post-secondary financial aid should no longer be reserved solely for those going on to four-year colleges, they argued, calling for a federal law making financial aid available for career programs for part-time students and those with less than an associate's degree. In addition to school-related participation, Assistant Secretary of Education Judy Heumann called on employers to boost their efforts to help meet the basic living needs of young adults leaving high school. "Housing and transportation are issues that employers have to recognize as more significantly disabled people are coming into the world of work," she argued. Non-cash Incentives Short of providing more financial incentives for employers to accommodate people with disabilities, the employers said the federal government could do a better job publicizing the availability of existing financial support. Some local service providers at the meeting noted the federal government could also publicize tax incentives for businesses who hire youth with disabilities and make those rules easier to understand. Community support, through increased patronage of those employers, could also be an effective incentive, the local agencies added. In fact, Office of Personnel Management General Counsel Suzanne Seiden added, the federal government should be a model for private sector employers to follow. OPM, which acts as the human resources agency for the federal government, the largest employer in the world, has developed a guide to help federal agencies recruit and increase the number of people with disabilities they employ. "It's not enough to have a plan and a guide. We have to follow it," she told the summit participants, "and you need to hold us accountable." Schools and school-to-career programs also need to improve the way they market their programs to employers, employers said, noting the federal government could assist them by reducing the number of contacts employers have to make to connect with such programs. Thirty-one percent of summit participants said creating or improving "one-stop" transition programs supported by multiple agencies will help. These one-stop centers are a key area where community groups and agencies can get involved in improving transition programs, the participants agreed, and the local service providers offered to help integrate employers into those organizations. Summit participants agreed that better coordinating the various programs and agencies targeting transition goals will improve the transition process. Not surprisingly, the most recommended method of aligning these was increasing collaboration among agencies about how to pool their funds for common projects. Forty-two percent of attendees said that would make a difference, Attendees overwhelmingly agreed such alignment and funding collaboration should be a federal policy priority as well as a goal on the state and local level. This argument has been made repeatedly at similar summits and conferences on special education programs despite the fact that, as Department of Education staffers frequently point out in their responses, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act's 1997 amendments and new rules for similar programs under other federal agencies have significantly increased the flexibility with which federal funds can be used for collaborative projects. The Biggest Disincentive Health care is another critical factor in students' transition to the workforce, summit participants agreed. About 55 percent said the best way to reduce that barrier is to establish a system of universal access to health services. The physicians group suggested the government expand health care coverage under the Social Security Act's Title V programs, through managed care organizations and through state children's health insurance programs. Parents as well as health professionals at the meeting also argued healthcare professionals should be better trained for serving adults with disabilities, so that the transition from child health services to adult care is seamless. The parents suggested the federal government should fund training and support programs for these providers. Other than these workgroups, however, the conference as a whole included very little discussion of health care issues and their impact on transition, noted Merle McPherson, director of the Health Resources and Services Administration's Division of Services for Children with Special Health Needs, which administers Title V programs. This is proof enough, she argued, that the disability community is not adequately aware of what HRSA does as the implementation arm of the better-known Health Care Finance Administration, which funds Medicare, Medicaid and other health programs. Two specific programs under HRSA, the Healthy and Ready to Work Initiative and "Health Goals 2010" include efforts to address the health needs of students with disabilities in transition to the work world, McPherson said, and she pledged to work on educating the disability community about those projects. Better health programs will be the most powerful tool for eliminating the disincentives to working created by Supplemental Security Income and welfare, summit participants agreed. However, Social Security Administration Associate Commissioner Mark Nadel said he was surprised attendees did not have more complaints about SSI's exclusions, which make choosing between gainful employment and the money distributed each month through SSI a difficult decision for many young adults. "Our role is primarily to deliver benefits, but we want to make sure that the benefits are delivered in a way that do not discourage work, that does not create disincentives to work," Nadel said. The Social Security Administration is currently examining ways to reduce the number of exclusions, such as limitations on student earning potential and the current age cap of 22 years old. The agency is also exploring ways to use its 1,300 field offices as contact points for other local agencies to improve collaboration in transition efforts and use its scheduled contacts with aid recipients to better provide information about programs, Nadel said. Awareness Still Lacking Communication about the federal School-to-Work program's benefits for student's with disabilities also seems to be inadequate, according to National School-to-Work Director Stephanie Powers. Many of the federal supports the participants asked for at the summit are either already available or in development through the School-to-Work project, she said. With the legislation authorizing that program set to expire in fall 2001, much of the continuing work is shifting to the state and local level, where members of the disability community must get more involved in implementing and sustaining the growth of those projects, Powers said. "As the federal legislation is sun-setting, that simply means that the investment -- the venture capital or the seed capital investment -- now is ending at a time when the states now are picking up sustainability. This is the time for you to be there, be at that table, ask for the kinds of things that you have asked here," she said. "Let them know that you are a constituency for things like School-to-Work."8 |
