CSDP Forum: Barriers and Supports to Employment for State Vocational Rehabilitation Clients

Individuals with a disability are less likely to find and keep jobs than people without disabilities are. Some people with disabilities, however, have more success with employment than their peers do. To better understand the factors that may explain these disparities, the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR) sponsored the Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Individual-Level Characteristics Related to Employment Among Individuals with Disabilities (IC-RRTC) at the Kessler Foundation.

The Center for Studying Disability Policy held a forum on Thursday, June 9, from 12:00 to 1:30 p.m. (ET) at Mathematica’s Washington, DC, office and via live webcast to discuss the IC-RRTC’s latest findings on how employment barriers, facilitators, and outcomes vary for clients of state vocational rehabilitation (VR) agencies. Our presentations highlighted findings from the new Survey of Disability and Employment, a study of 3,000 individuals who applied for state VR services in 2014.

Speakers included:

• Debra Brucker, Institute on Disability, University of New Hampshire
• Angie Jaszczak, Mathematica
• Joe Marrone, Institute for Community Inclusion, University of Massachusetts, Boston
• Frank Martin, Mathematica
• Purvi Sevak, Mathematica