SERVICE FOR PEOPLE WITH INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY

Service for People with Intellectual Disability

Service for People with Intellectual Disability

Introduction

Most advanced countries provide special employment programmes, besides vocational training rehabilitation, for the disabled. The most important employment programmes, in terms of participation, are subsidised, sheltered, and supported employment, respectively. In subsidised employment, part of the employer's wage costs is compensated by the government and the subsidy is typically phased out over time. Sheltered employment, which is the subject of this paper, is offered in protected environments at state-owned workshops, special businesses or certain segments of ordinary companies. In general, sheltered employment is targeted towards people with more severe disabilities and employment is more or less permanent. Supported employment, finally, is the most recent innovation, involving on-the-job support through personal job coaches for, in most countries, a limited duration.

Service for People with Intellectual Disability

According to a survey by the OECD (OECD, 2003), sheltered employment is particularly widespread in the Netherlands and Poland, with participation of about 1 percent of the working-age population in 1999, followed by Switzerland, Sweden and Norway (0.5 per cent) and Austria, Belgium, France and Germany (0.3 percent). Participation in sheltered employment is also reported to be significant in the US and the UK, although no exact figures are provided. In many of these countries, sheltered employment has been criticised for inefficiency. It has been argued that less segregated employment, in a more business-like and competitive environment is likely to be more cost-effective.

In response to the perceived inefficiencies, some countries have launched new policy initiatives in order to provide more flexible and diverse employment opportunities for the disabled, while maintaining financing by the central government. In the Netherlands, for example, responsibilities have been shifted more to the municipalities, with more emphasis put on jobs in ordinary labour markets (OECD, 2003). In the UK, employment opportunities in the regular labour market, outside of the state-owned company Remploy, have been encouraged (SOU, 2003, p. 56). Remploy assumes the main responsibility for working conditions and salary payments for those outside employees. In Norway, sheltered employment has been structured into three phases in order to ascertain the work capabilities of the individual and direct efforts efficiently (OECD, 2003; Widding, 2000). The companies providing sheltered employment are mainly municipality-owned. A government report in Sweden (SOU, 2003, p. 56) has concluded that sheltered employment, up to now the sole responsibility of the wholly state-owned company Samhall, should be re-orientated, much along similar lines as in the Netherlands, the UK and Norway.

In order to achieve adequate access to sheltered employment for the most severely disabled, especially in systems with a broader variety of programme operators, it is crucial that eligibility requirements and assessments of disabilities are applied in a consistent way. If not, “cream skimming”, i.e. selection of participants with “too little” or the “wrong type” of disability, may occur, as this yields more favourable outcomes for programme operators in terms of transitions to regular employment. The potential for cream skimming, based on individual characteristics other than disability, has ...