Customized Employment
A Back-to-Work Strategy for Job Seekers with Spinal Cord Injury
By W. Roy Grizzard, Jr.,
Assistant Secretary of Labor Office of
Disability Employment Policy
Posted with permission from NSCIA - excerpted from http://www.spinalcord.org/members/scilife/scilife16.pdf.
This is a story of two young men. One lives in the east and one in the west. A few years ago, both were full of enthusiasm and optimism. One was employed and the other was not yet in the workforce. Suddenly, each experienced an accident that resulted in a spinal cord injury. This is also a story about Customized Employment and how it changed each of their lives. Michael Fitzpatrick was living in Ohio and working as a paralegal. After moving to Maryland, he was involved in a serious accident. In an instant, he went from being an optimistic, confident young man to a despondent one.
Instead of the independent life he had enjoyed, Fitzpatrick found himself living in a nursing home in need of personal care assistance. The accident took away more than his ability to walk. It shattered his confidence. He didn’t think he could ever work again.
Randon Hill was an easy-going high school student in Montana. His sense of humor endeared him to many. Near the end of his junior year, he was involved in a car accident. He went on to complete high school, but then spent the next two years “hanging around the house,” as he puts it.
Both young men happened to go to their respective One-Stop Career Centers just at the time that the Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) was funding research on Customized Employment in those areas.
The staff at the Maryland Customized Employment Partnership met Fitzpatrick approximately one year after his injury. They helped him start a process of discovery to identify his strengths, skills, desires and even fears. This revealed that he had many skills to offer an employer, but he was hampered by not knowing what his body could do and by the fear that no employer would see beyond his wheelchair. Taking into account his typing and research skills, as well as his glowing smile, the Maryland staff decided that a work experience in customer service would help Fitzpatrick learn what accommodations he needed for maximum efficiency and help build his self-confidence. By combining funding sources, the Customized Employment Partnership created a three-month work experience in the One-Stop Career Center’s Sales and Service Learning Center. In addition to the work experience, Fitzpatrick was able to test different devices and software that would benefit him when he re-entered the competitive workforce. By the end of the three months, Fitzpatrick was ready to return to school to get his certificate in Paralegal Studies. Today, he is working 30-plus hours a week as a certified paralegal. Hill’s job search journey also started at his local One-Stop Career Center, the Hamilton Job Center, which was working in tandem with Montana Choice, another Customized Employment Project funded by ODEP.
Hill was tired of doing nothing and he wanted to work. His first obstacle was transportation. While he owned a car, he needed hand controls. Montana Choice was able to identify funding for this purpose. Even though he could now get to job interviews, Hill didn’t really know what he wanted to do. He lived in a small, primarily rural community, so the options were somewhat limited. Through the discovery process, the Montana Choice staff found his interest in working with his hands and, specifically, in welding. He previously learned welding from his father, and took a welding course in high school. The Customized Employment Project worked with a local employer, Hacienda Iron Crafts, Inc., to develop a month-long work experience for Hill. Montana Choice paid his wages while he tried out the job and was observed by his supervisor at Hacienda.
Although he didn’t have the technical training, he did so well that he even started doing design work during this work experience. Recognizing Hill’s intrinsic and instinctive understanding of the work, Hacienda offered him a permanent position. In assessing Hill’s accommodation needs, the company decided to follow universal design principles and make modifications that would benefit all of its employees. Table heights, for example, were adjusted not only to fit Hill’s wheelchair, but also to be a comfortable seating height for other workers. A special, lowered vice helped everyone work on heavy equipment.
Hill’s supervisor, Colby Sweat, says that there was no altruistic motive in hiring him. “I saw what a good worker he was and I wanted him around. He is a quick study. All I need to do is say this is what I need and I know I’ll get exactly what I want. If he can reach it, he can do it! In some instances, he has surpassed my skills.” Hill has now worked at Hacienda for two years and says he has loved every minute of it. In addition to Hill and Fitzpatrick’s personal Customized Employment success stories, ODEP’s preliminary research on the Customized Employment Demonstration Projects shows successful results for many other individuals with disabilities and in some cases individuals with compound disabilities.
Customized Employment is particularly beneficial for individuals with and without disabilities who have significant barriers to searching for employment using traditional methods. As demonstrated by the examples above, Customized Employment is based on four key elements:
- Meeting the job seeker’s individual needs and interests.
- Using a personal representative to assist and potentially represent the individual (This representative can be a counselor, job developer, advocate, employment specialist or other qualified professional).
- Negotiating successfully with employers to meet their needs.
- Building a system of ongoing supports for the job seeker.
A research sample of 536 individuals with disabilities previously considered unemployable validates that Customized Employment produces high-quality employment with increased wages, benefits and integration into the community. The research sample encompassed a population of varied ethnic diversity and types of disabilities. The preliminary findings show:
- 96 percent are earning above minimum wage, with an average hourly income of $8.60.
- 40 percent are earning more than $8.15 per hour.
- 33 percent obtained full-time employment (more than 35 hours a week).
- 63 percent obtained employment offering future advancement potential.
- Almost 30 percent are receiving at least one fringe benefit, such as health insurance, paid sick and vacation time, pension or retirement plans.
These preliminary findings have certainly been promising. ODEP is doing a more comprehensive analysis with a larger sample and will be releasing final results on these projects within the next few months. Most important, however, is the fact that ODEP’s research has produced changes in the way employment systems are organized and operated, resulting in more effective services and outcomes. Individualization and negotiation are becoming new ways of thinking about job matching and relationship-building with employers, not just for individuals with disabilities, but for everyone. As such projects and processes are replicated throughout the United States, we expect to see many more success stories about individuals with SCI and other disabilities. For more information on Customized Employment, I invite you to visit ODEP’s website at www.dol.gov/odep/categories/workforce/cust_emp.htm.
