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The public-sector Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) program is a $3 billion federal-state partnership designed to provide employment-related assistance to persons with disabilities. There is, however, relatively little-known about the long-term efficacy of VR programs. This paper utilizes unique and detailed administrative and employment data to exami...
Contexts in source publication
Context 1
... the quarter of service is the …rst quarter during the initial spell when purchased service is received (except when no service is received). In Figure 1, the curve labeled "Case Open vs Assumed Service Date" is the density of s = ts as and the curve labeled "Assumed date of service receipt, there are two potential shortcomings of this measure: …rst, the initial service quarter may di¤er from the application quarter, and second, some clients receive services over multiple quarters. Figure 1 provides information about the importance of these issues, with the curve labeled "Case Open vs Assumed Service Date" revealing the density of how long it takes (in quarters) to start receiving service after the application quarter, and the curve labeled "Assumed Service Date vs Last Service Receipt" displaying the density of the length of service receipt. ...
Context 2
... Figure 1, the curve labeled "Case Open vs Assumed Service Date" is the density of s = ts as and the curve labeled "Assumed date of service receipt, there are two potential shortcomings of this measure: …rst, the initial service quarter may di¤er from the application quarter, and second, some clients receive services over multiple quarters. Figure 1 provides information about the importance of these issues, with the curve labeled "Case Open vs Assumed Service Date" revealing the density of how long it takes (in quarters) to start receiving service after the application quarter, and the curve labeled "Assumed Service Date vs Last Service Receipt" displaying the density of the length of service receipt. 12 The …rst issue associated with the di¤erence between the application and service dates is that one might want to treat labor market outcomes di¤erently before and after application quarter (e.g., the Ashenfelter dip). ...
Context 3
... our speci…cation of the model, we distinguish between outcomes 8 or fewer quarters after service and 9 or more quarters after service. Figure 1 shows that 56:1% receive services for 3 quarters or less and only 19:1% of applicants are still receiving service after 8 quarters. Thus, for the most part, one can interpret the results for 9 or more quarters as being post-service receipt. ...
Context 4
... same issues apply with respect to interpretation and identi…cation except now the e¤ects are on w it in equation (3). The relative e¤ects can be observed more easily in Figure 10 Most previous evaluation of VR services focus on the impact of a single treatment indicator that is assumed to be conditionally exogenous. In this set- ting, the basic idea is to compare the di¤erences in mean outcomes between treatment and control groups after conditioning on observed variables. ...
Context 5
... that, except for diagnosis & evaluation, are consistently positive. Figure 11 uses the employment e¤ects from Table 10 and the log quarterly earnings e¤ects from Table 11 to compute the average marginal e¤ect of each service type on labor market outcomes. In particular, for each service j with value de…ned in equation (1) and each labor market outcome z it and w it de…ned in equations (2) and (3) respectively, we compute ...
Context 6
... ijkt (y ij ) is the outcome measure, employment (measured in probability incre- ments) or quarterly earnings conditional on employment (measured in $1000), for person i at time t conditional on whether service j is received y ij (with no other service being received); = ki is the set of quarters observed in the data for observation i before service receipt excluding the quarter preceding service (k = 0), in the short run (k = 1) or the long run (k = 2); and T ki is the num- ber of quarters in = ki . For example, for training, in Table 10 and Figure 9, In Figure 10, we see that, relative to the quarters preceding service, training slightly decreases quarterly earnings in the short run and increases them in the long run. 29 These are the four outcomes associated with training presented in Figure 11. ...
Context 7
... example, for training, in Table 10 and Figure 9, In Figure 10, we see that, relative to the quarters preceding service, training slightly decreases quarterly earnings in the short run and increases them in the long run. 29 These are the four outcomes associated with training presented in Figure 11. 30 One can see that, with the exception of diagnosis & evalua- tion and education, all services generally have positive labor market outcome e¤ects. ...
Context 8
... 9 The transformation of log wage e¤ects into wage e¤ects causes deviations in the results between Table 11 and Figure 10. 3 0 A complete set of moments and extrema associated with all parameter estimates is avail- able at Stern (2010). ...
Context 9
... of these issues apply to the other …ve aggregated services. Because of the variation in e¤ects over time and over labor market outcomes seen in Figure 11, it is di¢ cult to infer the long-run bene…ts of each service. Fig- ure 12 reports the mean present value for 10 years of earnings ‡ows (measured in $1000) excluding service costs , a 95% con…dence range, 32 and the minimum and maximum present value of each service. ...
Context 10
... of the variation in e¤ects over time and over labor market outcomes seen in Figure 11, it is di¢ cult to infer the long-run bene…ts of each service. Fig- ure 12 reports the mean present value for 10 years of earnings ‡ows (measured in $1000) excluding service costs , a 95% con…dence range, 32 and the minimum and maximum present value of each service. 33 Except for diagnosis & evalu- ation, all of the services have positive long-run bene…ts. ...
Context 11
... average, training, restoration, and other services have bene…ts on the order of $7700, $8600, and $8700 respectively, while education and maintenance have positive bene…ts of $1300 and $2600 respectively. It should be noted that, in Figure 11, education has a negative e¤ect on both short-and long-run employment probabilities but a substantial long-run positive e¤ect on quarterly earnings conditional on employ- ment. Figure 12 shows that the long-run conditional earnings e¤ects essentially o¤set the negative employment e¤ects for present value calculations. ...
Context 12
... should be noted that, in Figure 11, education has a negative e¤ect on both short-and long-run employment probabilities but a substantial long-run positive e¤ect on quarterly earnings conditional on employ- ment. Figure 12 shows that the long-run conditional earnings e¤ects essentially o¤set the negative employment e¤ects for present value calculations. One other notable feature of the discounted bene…ts calculations illustrated in Figure 12 is the high degree of variability across the caseload. ...
Context 13
... 12 shows that the long-run conditional earnings e¤ects essentially o¤set the negative employment e¤ects for present value calculations. One other notable feature of the discounted bene…ts calculations illustrated in Figure 12 is the high degree of variability across the caseload. The discounted bene…ts as- sociated with training services, for example, range from $500 to nearly $35000. ...
Context 14
... of these are highly signi…- cant implying a poor …t. Figure 13 plots the deviations between predicted and sample employment probabilities for the two periods. Deviations between the 45 line and the other two sample lines at any particular predicted probability represent that part of employment probability that we are not predicting. ...
Context 15
... preceding analysis suggests that, except for purchased diagnosis & eval- uation services, observed DRS services have long-run positive e¤ects on labor market outcomes (see Figures 11 and 12). In this section, we examine the social welfare implications of VR services by comparing the estimated bene…ts and costs of the program. ...
Context 16
... society does not bene…t from reduced transfer payments or increased tax revenues -taxpayer gains exactly o¤set VR participant losses (except for changes in deadweight loss) -social bene…ts may result from reduced administrative cost associated with welfare programs and increased VR participant utility due to reduced welfare dependence (Lalonde, 1995). Finally, there is substantial heterogeneity in the discounted bene…ts across the VR participants, suggesting that there may be a great deal of variation in the overall bene…ts estimates (see Figure 12). Many of the clients are estimated to have negative bene…ts from VR services. ...
Context 17
... average, mean expenditures for training, at $600, account for just over 40% of the total average cost of purchased services. Interestingly, the average cost for training is substantially less than the mean long-term dis- counted marginal bene…t of $7700 (see Figure 12). Overall, the mean costs of purchased services among all 1555 clients (30% of whom receive no purchased services) equals $1436 with a standard deviation of $3353. ...
Context 18
... also can compute the rate of return for each person receiving services in our sample. The results of this exercise are reported in Figure 14. For each sample individual receiving some service, we compare the expected ‡ow of bene…ts they would get with the service package they received relative to the ‡ow of bene…ts they would get with no services. ...
Context 19
... f is a combination of administrative costs and average (unobserved) in- house service and similar bene…ts costs, y ij is an indicator for receipt of service j by person i (as de…ned in equation 1), and c j is the average cost associated with service j computed as the ratio of "mean expenditure" and "% with positive expenditure" in Table 19. Figure 14 shows the distribution of quarterly rates of return for six scenarios: three with f = $1800 and three with f = $3600; and, for each assumption about f , we consider a) a 10-year horizon excluding diagnosis & evaluation, b) a 10-year horizon including diagnosis & evaluation, and c) a 5-year horizon excluding diagnosis & evaluation. 46 First, it is clear that earnings ‡ows in years 6 through 10 have a signi…cant impact on estimated rates of return, at least for conventional rates of return. ...
Citations
... The descriptive results from this article suggest that accounting for cross-state heterogeneity in client characteristics, services, and agency structure will be critical in order to draw credible inferences on the effect of vocational rehabilitation on labor market outcomes for people with visual impairments. Dean et al. (2015Dean et al. ( , 2017Dean et al. ( , 2018 and Schmidt et al. (2019) provided a modeling strategy that might be used to estimate the ROI for vocational rehabilitation for clients with visual impairments. Clapp et al. (2019) discussed the difficulties with performing a credible ROI analysis that provides causal effects of vocational rehabilitation services. ...
... In particular, people working for the federal government or commuting across state lines are not included in state UI data. Although we do not know the fraction of clients with vision impairments employed in business not covered by the state UI agencies, Dean et al. (2017) found that 12% of vocational rehabilitation participants in Virginia's general agency who reported earnings to the Internal Revenue Services were not covered by the UI system. Thus, this data limitation may be an important issue for future researchers to address. ...
... As described previously, the literature evaluating vocational rehabilitation clients with visual impairments documented significant associations between employment and a wide range of demographic, health, and vocational rehabilitation agency-specific measures. More generally, the labor economics literature (e.g., Aakvik et al., 2005;Baldwin, 1999;Dean et al., 2015Dean et al., , 2017Dean et al., , 2018andStern, 1989, 1996) found a set of similar explanatory variables (e.g., demographics, education, health) that almost always has a significant effect on both employment and quarterly earnings. Most of the variables identified in these literatures are included in our data. ...
Introduction
This study describes the characteristics of, services received by, and labor market outcomes of applicants with visual impairments to three state vocational rehabilitation programs. Our objective is to both document cross-state variation in vocational rehabilitation clientele and services and provide new insights on the longitudinal labor market outcomes of clients with visual impairments (i.e., blindness or low vision). This analysis is a first step in assessing the returns to vocational rehabilitation services for this population.
Methods
We first created a unique longitudinal data set by matching administrative records on applicants who are visually impaired in state fiscal year 2007 from three vocational rehabilitation agencies to 8 years of employment data from state Unemployment Insurance programs. Using these data, we examined cross-state variation in the descriptive statistics for important client explanatory variables and vocational rehabilitation service categories. We then compared the long-term labor market outcomes of clients receiving services (treated) to untreated individuals.
Results
We documented two important findings. First, there were substantial differences in client characteristics, services provided, and costs across the three states. Second, the long-run labor market analysis was consistent with vocational rehabilitation services having no employment effect but a positive earnings effect.
Discussion
Labor market results indicate vocational rehabilitation services provided persistent earnings benefits. Yet the substantial cross-state heterogeneity suggests these labor market results might not be generalizable and should be interpreted with caution. We explain what was missing from this analysis and why the results should not be thought of as causal.
Implications for Practitioners
This article gives practitioners a sense of a unique new data set on vocational rehabilitation and labor market variables for applicants with visual impairments. We highlight the importance of cross-state variation and linking vocational rehabilitation data to long-term employment measures. The question of how best to inform the efficacy of different vocational rehabilitation strategies for clients with visual impairments is left for future researchers to consider.
... More recently, Dean et al. (2015) used a different quasi-experimental approach and finds positive impacts on employment and earnings for some categories of services provided to Virginia VR clients with mental illnesses, but do not differentiate between SSDI beneficiaries and others. Stapleton et al. (2014) used the randomized mailing of tickets to beneficiaries at the start of TTW to measure the incremental impacts of TTW on service use by SSDI beneficiaries and later employment and benefit outcomes. ...
As part of the Ticket to Work (TTW) and Work Incentives Improvement Act of 1999, Congress directed the Social Security Administration (SSA) to test alternative Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) work rules designed to increase the incentive for SSDI beneficiaries to work and reduce the total amount of SSDI benefits paid to beneficiaries. In response, SSA has undertaken the Benefit Offset National Demonstration (BOND), a random assignment test of alternative SSDI program rules governing work and other supports. BOND tests a 2 benefit offset applied to annual earnings above the BOND Yearly Amount (BYA)—the annual equivalent of SSDI’s substantial gainful activity amount. As a result, beneficiaries in the treatment group are able to retain some of their monthly cash benefits while earning more than BYA. The benefit offset reduces yearly SSDI benefits by 2 in annual earnings above BYA (in other words, reduces yearly SSDI benefits by half the amount that annual earnings exceed the BYA threshold). The Final Evaluation Report presents findings about the implementation of BOND through the sixth year of implementation (2016), estimates of impacts on earnings and benefit outcomes from the first five years of implementation (through 2015), and the results of benefit-cost analyses.
... 3 While the short-run impacts of transitioning youth programs are certainly important, there are good reasons to think that the shortand long-run e¤ects may di¤er. Long-run evaluations of intensive employment training for other at-risk populations -similar in many respects to the human capital development services provided transitioning youth with disabilities -imply di¤erent and, in some cases, much greater employment impacts in the period four to six years after assignment than in the initial three-year study period (Couch, 1992;Friedlander and Burtless, 1995;Hotz et al., 2006;Dean et al., 2015Dean et al., , 2017Dean et al., , 2018. This is especially true for transitioning youth where there is "considerable uncertainty about the persistence of training e¤ects" (Hotz et al., 2006). ...
... As such, PERT participation enters the model in three distinct ways: a direct e¤ect on employment and earnings, an indirect interaction e¤ect with schooling, and an indirect interaction e¤ect with VR services provided by DARS. To do this, we incorporate PERT in a modi…ed version of the Dean et al. (2015Dean et al. ( , 2017Dean et al. ( , 2018) multivariate discrete choice model where VR services are endogenously selected and allowed to have a direct e¤ect on labor market outcomes. Importantly, this structural approach allows us to account for the complex interactions between PERT, schooling and VR, to model the endogenous selection of VR and PERT services, and to fully assess counterfactual scenarios. ...
... This "slot constraint" is associated with the PERT participation probability but arguably uncorrelated with unobserved labor market factors. In addition, following Doyle (2007), Maestas et al. (2013), and Dean et al. (2015Dean et al. ( , 2017Dean et al. ( , 2018, we instrument for VR service provision using the propensity of an individual's VR counselor and …eld o¢ ce to assign clients to services. As discussed below, these counselor/…eld o¢ ce variables are related to VR service provision but have no direct e¤ect on labor market outcomes. ...
The process of “transitioning” to adulthood for youth with disabilities has long been recognized to be an important but understudied public policy concern. This paper evaluates the labor market effects of Virginia's school-to-work vocational evaluation program, PERT. Using a unique panel data set containing more than a decade of labor market and service information, we provide the first-ever assessment of the long-term employment impacts of a transitioning program for youth with disabilities. Overall, the estimated effects are substantial: PERT has an estimated median quarterly rate of return of nearly 30%.
... We …ll this void by evaluating the impact of VR services on labor market outcomes of adults with physical disabilities who applied for services in Virginia. This work complements our previous evaluations of the impact of VR on persons with mental illness and cognitive disabilities (Dean et al., 2015(Dean et al., , 2017. Extending the approach developed in Dean et al. (2015Dean et al. ( , 2017, we use detailed panel data on all persons who applied to receive VR services from the Virginia Department of Aging and Rehabilitation Services (DARS) in State Fiscal Year 2000. 1 With quarterly employment and earnings data from 1995 to 2008, we observe labor market outcomes prior to, during, and after service receipt. ...
... This work complements our previous evaluations of the impact of VR on persons with mental illness and cognitive disabilities (Dean et al., 2015(Dean et al., , 2017. Extending the approach developed in Dean et al. (2015Dean et al. ( , 2017, we use detailed panel data on all persons who applied to receive VR services from the Virginia Department of Aging and Rehabilitation Services (DARS) in State Fiscal Year 2000. 1 With quarterly employment and earnings data from 1995 to 2008, we observe labor market outcomes prior to, during, and after service receipt. ...
... As in Dean et al. (2015;2017), we aggregate VR services into six types -diagnosis and evaluation, training, education, restoration, maintenance, and other services -and allow these six services to have di¤erent labor market e¤ects. To do this, we estimate a multivariate discrete choice model of service provision and labor market outcomes. ...
We evaluate the impact of vocational rehabilitation (VR) services on employment outcomes of adults with physical disabilities. Using detailed panel data from the Virginia Department of Aging and Rehabilitation Services in state fiscal year 2000, we estimate a structural model of participation that accounts for the potentially sudden onset of physical impairments and the endogenous selection of VR services. The results imply that VR services have large, positive long-run labor market effects that substantially exceed the cost of providing services.
... Transportation access can impede progress in vocational placement (Milfort et al., 2015) The macrosystem is defined as the interaction between two or more exosystems (Wang et al., 2010). Entities such as managed care organizations and Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA) provide oversight to medical providers and VR service providers respectively (Conroy, Dale, & McCaffrey, 2016;Dean, Pepper, Schmidt, & Stern, 2016). Differences in policies created by these entities can restrict collaborative care efforts between the local medical provider office and the State Vocational Rehabilitation Administration (SVRA) service provider (Penney et al., 2016). ...
Native Americans have experienced a long history of colonization and genocide, which has had a devastating effect on the health, both physical and emotional, of native people (Young, 1994). This has ultimately affected many aspects of their lives including education. The aim of this qualitative study was to understand the perceptions of faculty and staff on a Midwestern Tribal College campus regarding disability and historical trauma. Participants completed an open-ended questionnaire related to disability, student accommodations, and historical trauma. Five themes emerged, including novel themes such as minimal disability knowledge, unidentified mental health issues, limited accommodations for students, recognition of historical trauma and variation in understanding historical trauma. The participants’ responses indicate a need for professional development to improve disability-related educational support. Further research is needed on Native American student effects of historical trauma to understand implications of retention and classroom accommodations. Implications for educators, researchers and rehabilitation counselors are discussed.
... The proportion of transition-age VR clients with MHC receiving postsecondary education support has not been directly investigated previously. The potential benefit of SVRA provision of postsecondary education support is documented in a recent study of the labor market effects of VR support among people with mental illness in Virginia (Dean et al., 2015). The authors found that individuals who received postsecondary education support exhibited increased employment and earnings in the 2 years following VR participation. ...
... However, because of the potential for positive employment outcomes for those with MHC (Dean et al., 2015), along with SVRAs having such wide differences in the provision of postsecondary education support, one might argue that, at least at SVRAs where few youth with MHC received postsecondary education support, there is the potential for expansion. If VR youth clients with MHC at SVRAs where the provision of postsecondary education support was low applied to SVRAs with broader offers of such support, they might be more likely to receive it, with potential implications for short-term educational attainment and long-term employment outcomes. ...
Objective:
We examine the role of state vocational rehabilitation (VR) agencies (SVRA) in providing postsecondary education support to transition-age youth with and without mental health conditions (MHC) to provide insights into who receives such supports and the association between the receipt of postsecondary education support and successful VR exits.
Method:
We used data from SVRA administrative records (fiscal years 2002 through 2013) for a secondary analytical approach that relied on descriptive and regression methods, resulting in the identification of 436,883 VR youth clients who applied from 2002 to 2004. Linear regression models examined the relationships between youth demographic and service characteristics and each of 4 binary outcomes derived from the administrative records: (1) receipt of VR services, (2) receipt of college support (conditional on receiving services), (3) receipt of vocational training support (conditional on receiving services), and (4) exiting with employment.
Results:
SVRAs had a wide range in the provision of postsecondary education support to clients with MHC, from almost none receiving such supports to more than half. VR youth clients with MHC were less likely than those without MHC to have received any VR services or college support. Receipt of postsecondary education support was positively associated with being employed at the time of VR exit, and the associations for those with MHC were not statistically different from those without MHC.
Conclusions and implications for practice:
SVRAs have the potential to play a large role in the provision of postsecondary education support. Although those who received postsecondary education support were more likely to be employed at the time of VR exit, the provision of that support came at a cost-the high financial costs of that type of support relative to other services offered by SVRAs, as well as the opportunity cost of the client's time. (PsycINFO Database Record
... Subsequent research using small-scale demonstrations evaluate the e¤ectiveness of training services on short-term employment outcomes (see Howarth et al., 2006). 3 Dean et al. (2013a) conduct a similar analysis focused on clients with mental illnesses. the latent labor market outcomes and pre-program labor market outcomes that control for di¤erences between those who will and will not receive services. ...
... In this section, we describe the model of behavior to be estimated. It follows directly from and uses the same notation as Dean et al. (2013a). Given the high proportion of individuals receiving more than one service type, we allow for the possibility of receipt of multiple services in our model; i.e., we have a multivariate binary choice model for service provision rather than a polychotomous discrete choice model. ...
... However, when performing a cost/bene…t and rate-of-return analysis in Section 6, we impute a value of total service costs. Also, in our model, 8 While this is a simple and appealing way to de…ne the date of service receipt, there are potential limitations of this measure (see Dean et al., 2013a). Most notably, since some clients receive services over multiple quarters, the estimated short-run e¤ects of VR services may be downward biased. ...
This article utilizes administrative data to examine both short- and long-term employment impacts for people with cognitive impairments who applied for vocational rehabilitation services in Virginia in 2000. These data provide long-term quarterly information on services and employment outcomes. We model behavior, allow for multiple service choices, use long-run labor market data, and use valid instruments. Results imply that services generally have positive long-run labor market outcome effects that appear to substantially exceed the cost of providing services.
... As the nation's primary employment support program for people with disabilities, state VR agencies seem wellpositioned to assist people with disabilities in securing gainful employment rather than receiving SSDI/SSI (Stapleton and Martin 2012). Yet, while found to play an important role in helping persons with disabilities to engage in the labor market (Loprest 2007;Dean et al. 2013aDean et al. , 2013bDean et al. and 2013c, very little is known about whether VR services reduce participation in Federal Disability Insurance programs 1 . If VR services improve labor market outcomes of potential SSDI/SSI beneficiaries, some clients may choose to fully participate in the labor market rather than take up SSDI/SSI. ...
... If VR services improve labor market outcomes of potential SSDI/SSI beneficiaries, some clients may choose to fully participate in the labor market rather than take up SSDI/SSI. Yet, for those with limited abilities or interest, VR programs may instead serve to help clients understand Federal Disability Insurance programs and rules, and consequently lead to an increase in take-up (Stapleton and Martin 2012;Dean et al. 2013a). ...
... This rich panel data enable us to provide important insights into the long-run impact of VR services on receipt of Federal Disability Insurance. Given that the labor market impacts of VR services are known to differ by the type of limitation (Dean and Dolan 1991;Baldwin 1999;Dean et al. 1999;Marcotte et al. 2000;Dean et al. 2013aDean et al. , 2013b and 2013c), we analyze the full population as well as subpopulations of clients with a physical impairment, mental illness, or cognitive impairment 2 . We also examine SSDI and SSI receipt separately: the two groups of recipients have very different characteristics, receive different benefit amounts, and face different earnings incentives. ...
We examine the association between the receipt of vocational rehabilitation (VR) services and Federal Disability Insurance using a unique panel data source on persons who applied for assistance from Virginia’s VR program in 2000. Three central findings emerge: first, VR services are associated with lower rates of participation in disability insurance programs-a nearly 2 point drop in SSDI receipt and 1 point drop in SSI receipt. Second, VR service receipt is associated with lower take-up rates of SSDI/SSI. Finally, among VR applicants on SSDI/SSI, those who receive substantive VR services are more likely to be employed.
JEL codes
H51, I13, J24
... There are many public sector vocational rehabilitation programs that are designed to provide employment related assistance to the persons with disabilities. Stern et al., (2011), conducted a study to examine such kind of program that provides vocational rehabilitation services in the state of Virginia to mentally ill persons. Their outcomes revealed that "Vocational rehabilitation services generally have positive long run effects for mentally ill people in the labor market." ...
Everybody should get equal opportunities to develop his or her personality either someone healthy or disable. The objective of this study is to explore the vocational rehabilitation of special people and to examine the performance of teacher regarding vocational training and finally to what extent students are satisfied with their teachers. For this purpose 25 questionnaires were filled by teachers and 50 by the students of special institution from district Faisalabad. The result showed that teachers actively perform to motivate and encourage the students thereby creating interest regarding vocational training among them. And students are getting equal opportunities of training as normal children have.
Türkiye’de mesleki rehabilitasyon hizmetleri açısından son yıllarda oldukça önemli gelişmeler kaydedilmiş olmasına rağmen söz konusu hizmetlerin henüz yeterli kalite ve yaygınlığa erişememiş olduğu görülmektedir. Nitekim, Türkiye’de mesleki rehabilitasyon hizmetlerinin etkililiği ve yaygınlığı ile ilgili yeterince istatistiki veri ve araştırmanın mevcut olmadığı, hizmetlere bakış açısının ağırlıklı olarak tıbbi modele dayandığı ve mesleki rehabilitasyon hizmetlerinin çok disiplinli yapısının göz ardı edildiği dikkati çekmektedir. Daha da önemlisi, başta ABD olmak üzere birçok ülkede mesleki rehabilitasyon alanında öncülük eden ve etkililiği bilimsel araştırmalarla kanıtlanan bir alan olan rehabilitasyon danışmanlığının Türkiye’de var olmadığı görülmektedir. Tüm bu faktörlerin, engelli bireylere sağlanan mesleki rehabilitasyon hizmetleri üzerinde olumsuz etkilerinin bulunduğu düşünülmektedir. Bu bağlamda, bu makalede öncelikle Türkiye’de yeterince tanınmayan ve özel eğitim veya fizik tedavi gibi alanlarla karıştırılan rehabilitasyon danışmanlığı alanının tarihsel gelişimi, tanımı ve işlevlerine yer verilmekte, daha sonra ise rehabilitasyon danışmanlığının en çok ön plana çıkan hizmet alanı olan mesleki rehabilitasyonun kapsam ve dayanaklarına değinilmektedir. Son olarak, Türkiye’deki ve ABD’deki mesleki rehabilitasyon hizmetlerinin mevcut durumu gözden geçirilerek Türkiye’de mesleki rehabilitasyon hizmetlerinin geliştirilebilmesi amacıyla önerilerde bulunulmaktadır.
