Vocational Rehabilitation: Helping Clients Go Back to Work

Tyler Podcast Episode 22, Transcript

Our Tyler Technologies podcast explores a wide range of complex, timely, and important issues facing communities and the public sector. Expect approachable tech talk mixed with insights from subject matter experts and a bit of fun. Host and Content Marketing Director Jeff Harrell – and other guest hosts – highlights the people, places, and technology making a difference. Give us listen today and subscribe.

Episode Summary

Vocational Rehabilitation. It’s a vital service for individuals and communities, but to be effective, VR counselors must have the right tools to help. To help us understand what vocational rehabilitation is, who is eligible, and what success looks like for both the individual and community, we turn to John Harper. John is the Chief Subject Matter Expert at Encorpe, and has 25 years working in vocational rehabilitation. He has a Master’s degree in vocational rehabilitation counseling, a licensed professional counselor, a certified rehabilitation counselor, and spent many years in the Missouri Vocational Rehabilitation agency.

Transcript

John Harper: That individual goes to work. They no longer need federal or state benefits. They have their own insurance. At VR, we do a little supplement to get them there. They know that we're a little bit of a safety net if we need it, to come back in, but most people never request any additional services, but they know we're there. And they're just contributing back to the community for many, many years.

Jeff Harrell: From Tyler Technologies, it's the Tyler Tech Podcast, where we talk about issues facing communities today and highlight the people, places and technology, making a difference. I'm your host, Jeff Harrell. I'm the Director of Content Marketing for Tyler. I'm so glad that you joined me.

Vocational rehabilitation. It's a vital service for individuals and communities, but to be effective, VR counselors must have the right tools to help. To help us understand what vocational rehabilitation is, who is eligible and what success looks like for both individuals and communities, we turn to John Harper. John is the Chief Subject Matter expert at Encorpe and has 25 years working in the vocational rehabilitation space. John has a master's degree in vocational rehabilitation counseling and is a licensed professional counselor and spent many years in the Missouri Vocational Rehabilitation Agency. Without further ado, here's my conversation with John Harper.

Well, John, I'm really excited to talk to you today. Let's start at the top. What is vocational rehabilitation?

John Harper: Vocational rehabilitation is a federal program, but it's a partnership with the states. With that partnership, there's federal funding and state funding to serve individuals with disabilities to go back to work. Or to, in the circumstances of transition aged youth, to just dream and think about what they want to do when they do go to work, whenever they exit high school or community college, or go directly into the job market and what have you. It's a program that is built around the individual's needs, who they are and what they need to actually function in the job market and be a great employee. That's essentially it.

Eligibility

Jeff Harrell: And John, are these people who have had jobs before? I'm just trying to understand who would be eligible for this kind of a program?

John Harper: Why don't go back kind of the beginning of where VR came out of, vocational rehabilitation and where we are now. Vocational rehabilitation just had its 100th anniversary this last June. It's one of those things that we didn't get to celebrate much with the pandemic, that we've been limited with. But in 1920, there was something called Smith-Fess Act. And that was the Public Vocational Rehabilitation Act, and it came just after World War I. The year prior, there was something in 1919 called I think it was a Smith-Sears Act. But that information really is thinking about World War I, soldiers coming back, there were a lot of injuries. Think about what was going on during that period of time. If you had really the first pandemic that we recognize in the United States of significance, Spanish flu. And people were injured, people needed to reintegrate back into work, people, these returning soldiers and so forth in '19, it was a worthy enough program and significant enough program in '20, that's when it was funded for the public to receive those services. And it was about going into and growing the job market for folks, during that period. That's the roaring '20s. Country was growing and a lot of things were going on with that. And technology, I think about the technology during the time. Medicine was starting to make some impact on people's lives, where they can be, I'll use a term that we now, living in the community. That's what the program did, put people into trades, you name it, VR did it. Even at the time, did a lot of physical restoration during that period.

John Harper: Again, think of the war. You think of what was going on then, physical injuries, mechanical stuff, lose a limb, perhaps. In a work accident, there was no worker's compensation back then, but what you had to do is earn a living, so prosthetic devices were provided. The other thing that was going on during that period of time, it was a great equalizer for all, many of the diseases that we really take for granted now that we're immunized for, measles, those type of things, would cause blindness, or Scarlet fever. Many other folks can name more than what I can. Perhaps in childhood, or maybe as an adult have an issue where you contracted that disease because of lack of immunizations, then you contracted blindness. You had to make a transition. How do you support those individuals? And there's just a lot of work that was done reading braille and being able to ambulate around the community. That was part of the vocational rehabilitation program in that era.

Jeff Harrell: And John fast forward us to today, who would be the kind of clients that would be eligible for such programs?

John Harper: Sure. Well, just fast forward, we're going to hit the little speed bump, World War II, people were going to war and they needed to put hands in the factories. Voc rehab stepped up to the table and helped people with disabilities go in and help Rosie the riveter, do all of their work in the factories. That was a big deal. But I practice with things like traumatic brain injury, helping people that had received those injuries, been in a coma, rehabilitated, helping them move back into the community. A lot of work, behavioral work with them, so that they could get back into their routine and fit back within their lives and take control of their lives. Did a lot of work with the other hidden disabilities, severe persistent mental illness, helping people with that lived experience, make transitions and deciding that work is the best thing for them to do, that helps them with their mental health. They still might need the benefit of maintaining their medication and keep that balance. But equally so, the balance of meaningful work, that dignity and respect. You and I just on this conversation we're having, this is our work, being engaged in the things that we're doing, feeling good about that. What did we complete at the end of the day? The addictions, worked very heavily in addictions, working across the crack and meth and opioids over these years, and seeing where medication assisted treatment fits into that person living in the community, working in the community, in their own recovery. Probably one of the most important things that I learned from one of my people I served, recovery is work, but work is recovery. They just simply defined what they had to do in their lives.

John Harper: And they're just synonymous with each other, moving forward. Voc rehab does that, very flexible program, very dynamic program, working in the federal government, state government rules. It's not an open checkbook by any stretch. We're responsible to the taxpayer, the dollars, how it's spent, why it's spent. With a plan for that individual, the plan that they make, that we help them craft and move forward. You might hear us say individual plan for employment, the IPE. And it's just an important document. The document's been around for a hundred years, having a plan, making that plan, developing it and then working the plan, so you can be successful. That's what the voc rehab world's all about.

Jeff Harrell: And John, I'm interested in knowing this plan that you're talking about. Who on the government side is working this plan, developing this plan and working with the clients?

John Harper: That's a great question because it's a question that I'm very, very proud of having been a part of. The funding for this, because it's very career focused. Some people say, "Well, that feels kind of odd," but the funding for VR, the vocational rehabilitation program, or the state federal vocational rehabilitation program, comes from through the US Department of Education. It funnels down to the US Department of Education, Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services to an organization called the Rehabilitation Services Administration. Very small organization that disperses these funds out and policies and processes under something that's called a Rehabilitation Act, that has been around for a very, very long time in its various iterations, and sending grant dollars directly to state government, to form vocational rehabilitation units, or VR agencies, we'll use that acronym. And within that agency, and this is the thing where I get quite proud. The critical person that's actually named in the Rehabilitation Act as amended, is the vocational rehabilitation counselor. It's the only practicing helper in the federal legislation that I know of, in the country, so it's a very special niche. That niche of the helping field, the ability to communicate and hopefully listen and hear that person, but also the overlays of the various medical aspects of disability and the equally important, the understanding of careers, career pathways they're called now, and what do I need to do to be meaningful in that career pathway? What training do I need? Do I need to go to... I want to be an accountant. Do I need to get the degree in accountancy? Or can I just go be an accounting clerk someplace and having those conversations, so it's pretty cool.

Specialized Plans

Jeff Harrell: And John, the plan you're putting together with the clients, I imagine that's a pretty specialized plans. Are there some major components that make up that particular plan?

John Harper: Sure. Well, as soon as I start naming components, I'm going to have some of my colleagues probably listen to this and say "John, he had it not quite right, with that terminology," which is okay, that's fine. And I respect that primarily because with a plan, the plan is really that individual's plan, when I talk about the components. There are components you need for regulatory things that you need, but more importantly, the plan has to describe the hopes and dreams of that individual. You really hope to capture some of that from their words, somewhere in that plan process, somewhere on that plan, I want to go be an accountant. And here's why, this is what I would bring to the table. And here's my plan. This is what I think I need to do. And that voc rehab counselor is there to pull that out of that individual and help them write and develop their plan. We'll standardize it, so it becomes meaningful, where we can go from, I think I need to go to college to get this to, well, this is how to go to college, and here are the pieces to attend the University of Texas or Arkansas State, or you fill in the blank, financial aid and all those things, that's sometimes listed on that plan. It's that journey. What do you need to go from here? Who I am? Is my dream to execute that with the plan?

John Harper: And then I was always hopefully, forward thinking in my conversations with the people I serve, where do they see themselves in the job market in where do they want to work? And it might be just that initial job, but it also might be that career pathway to the future. Where do you see yourself? And then I think about the overlay. What about the disability, Jeff? See these individuals might have a physical disability and they're in their late twenties and things are fine, but what happens when that's progressing, when that disability progresses a little bit, where there are factors that impact that individual or potentially anticipate that impacts the individual? Will it be technology to mitigate that so they can stay in that same job or do they need to move along in that career path, where they're moving maybe more into the supervisory role or growing within that job? Maybe their responsibilities, the impact of those physical abilities, again, they're mitigated over time. Can I get off the crystal ball with you and help you plan that and give you some different off ramps to different areas? It's kind of fun.

Jeff Harrell: I'll be back with my conversation with John Harper in just a moment. Did you know that Tyler Technologies has a vocational rehabilitation solution? It manages all aspects of VR services administration. The Tyler Solution, automates paper based processes and streamlines every task, giving counselors and other VR staff, the freedom to focus on ensuring each client receives the guidance and services needed, to achieve their vocational goals. For more information, go to tylertech.com. Now, back to my conversation with John Harper. And I imagine that the journey that you have with some of these clients could last several years.

John Harper: Yes, it can. I've had the privilege of living in the community that I practice as a counselor for 30 years now. And this is one of my favorite stories. About three, four years ago, I'm coming in off a trip, gassing up my car. And there's this guy across the large gas station. He starts waving at me and he's a big guy. I'm like, "Oh no, what did I do?" Waves me over. And I'm going to have, "Okay, I'm brave." I gave him the minute sign, I pulled away from the pump and he pulled over and he called me by name. And I called him by name. It came out, bam, knew exactly who he was. He warned me first. He said, "I'm going to give you a hug." He shared with me how, he said something to the extent that how I saved his life. And he told me his journey since I'd last worked with them as a VR counselor. Pretty cool.

Bridging the Gap

Jeff Harrell: Yeah, John, that's really cool. And you've got these clients that need services, and then the government has services that they can provide. How do you bridge the gap? How do you bring those two sides together? How does that process work?

John Harper: Well, I'll tell you, voc rehab's one of those things that I think is a special job, that I know a lot of people envy and most voc rehab agencies encourages, and this was actually written into the Rehab Act and Regulation. The expectation is that, the VR counselors go to where the clients are. We go to the counties, the small towns, the communities, wherever they're at, seeking out people with disabilities to assist them and trying to do it in a very, very comfortable way, asking if they need help. You get folks that, you might go to a meeting in a small community or go down to where those folks are drinking coffee and sitting on the town square kind of thing. That's the stuff I was pretty comfortable doing and engage and have that conversation, talk with the clinics, go to the substance use treatment program, so that's what I would do, have office hours, community behavioral health pro programs. There's something called FQHCs, federally qualified health centers that we would also affiliate with. And I had that opportunity as well. And those are the health clinics that are sliding scale, are very no cost, low cost for people with very modest means. Just so many, many different ways. The big deal now, though Jeff, is schools and vocational rehabilitation has always had a role of working with schools, but the reauthorization of the Rehabilitation Act is 2014. There was an alignment with Congress where they started to align the job programs and vocational rehabilitation is located as in a partnership under WIOA with the US Department of Labor programs. Adult education, where you go get the assistance so that you can get your equivalency degree, high school, GED or high set equivalencies, so that you can jump into maybe community college or meet that qualification for those jobs, higher education and so forth, so those are the partners.

John Harper: But VR, we had a really special mandate. Our mandate was actually to go into the schools, Department of Education, that's where our funding comes from. And the idea is, and it's bearing out now with the research that's shown, that those early interventions in school, that transition, start catching those kids at the youngest age you can under the law, which is 14, under WIOA and start talking about, "What do you want to do? Well, let's map out that course with you." Let's help the teacher understand what that young person might need with their family under the IEP, Individualized Education Plan, which is another federal mandate. How do you fit that together? How do you become a part of all of that? So that at the end, when that young person completes high school, they've got some skills that they've built.

John Harper: Some of those credentials, they're qualified. They've had some experience to go get them. For heaven's sake, how do you answer a phone, at a business? You give them some job experience doing that, so they can start making choices to jump maybe right into employment, or they've carefully crafted their understanding of the world of work and what do they want to do, and how quickly can they go into the education and training programs to go to school? And then that's where VR picks up. Under VR program, there's some limitations. Most of the VR agencies have some means tests. It's not everybody, but, we will work with everyone, but not everyone necessarily can receive funding to go to college or go to the university, because we look typically at a means, test the family's income. And there are some other ways of going to school. People have heard a Pell grant, people have other scholarships and those type of things. VRs typically in those scenarios, Jeff, it's called payer of the last dollar, and that's very common in government. If there's something else that'll do it, we want you to be mainstreamed in doing it like any other kiddo going to school or young person or young adult, and what have you. And then we'll come in and do the wraparound behind what are the additional pieces that you need. An example of that would be somebody with a physical impairment, attending the university, back when you could attend university physically pre-pandemic, in person. And often, textbooks, of course, I'm around where textbooks were all paper, but obviously, technology is driven some of that, but you still need to go into the classroom.

John Harper: You still need to sometimes take notes or you need to manipulate things. The VR agency might provide some personal care attendant to help manipulate and help the person get from point A to point B in their day to day activity to attend school. That would be a realistic thing. Besides helping them maybe with some tuition or helping them with the additional needs too. While they attend school, you need to have a caregiver to help you prepare for bed at night, yourself, besides manipulating the books and things while you do study. That's the type of planning that we do that, sometimes it gets overlooked. You sometimes don't know you need it until you get there, and maybe we can mitigate some of that and anticipate that with the individual.

Jeff Harrell: And I know the counselor role is such a critical role. John, what are some of the things that get in the way of counselors being able to help the people that they really want to help?

John Harper: First of all, there's so much need, I think that's common across human services, but there's so much need there. It's that age old thing that we will all talk about in human services or medical services, it's about documentation, "Oh my goodness, I need to document this stuff." And a very wise supervisor administrator with me said, "That's the price of having the money that we have though. We have to do that." What's that balance? Having enough experience to be able to communicate in a very distinct and compressed way that everyone knows what you're talking about, without being too jargony, too clinical, and the systems that you need to wrap around that person. Maybe a VR counselor, leveraging technology to do some of that work. We're not too proud. We understand if we can borrow some techniques and some technology, maybe from the people we serve, persons with disabilities, maybe do some dictation, speech to text, help me do a case note, just a lot of work.

Jeff Harrell: John, and as a counselor, what are some of the things that you needed that would help you become more successful in the role, and to be able to help the clients that you wanted to help?

John Harper: One of the more challenging things for all of us, is to learn how to sit back and listen and hear what a person's saying. You listen to them, but did you really hear what they were saying? With that, comes personal life experience. Can you relate to them first? I grew up in a rural area, so maybe it was a little easier for me to relate and understand when somebody from a rural area is experiencing with a disability as opposed to an urban area. I always regret, there are times when you, I look back at my career, I was listening and I didn't hear, and you always hope to have a do over, to circle back with that person. And I always did my best to do that, and always be honest and open with them, be very transparent so that we could always try to do the right thing, quite simply. It's not making about people feel happy. They'll be happy. It's more about them feeling that they have control and success, and they're doing it with whatever we're doing, this essence of, are we in our relationship sharing what we need with dignity and respect mutually.

The Picture of Success

Jeff Harrell: And John, I know for vocational rehabilitation counselors to be effective, they need funding. They need technology and flexibility. What does success look like if they have all these things for both the individuals and for the communities.

John Harper: The individual, that individual, and I think in a perfect world, the individual being served, people go to work and people wouldn't be the wiser. It's the great leveler. You have an accessible universally designed world and you walk into the workplace. I mentioned earlier that the individual, maybe that's being the accountant and they're in the old days that I might be buying technology to supplement that person's workstation and putting drag and dictate to voice control on a windows machine, so they could go to work. Well, now most of the employers have computers with native applications within the operating system that already do that. That person just naturally will know through their training and the activity that they've done is, "Oh, I don't need to ask for accommodations. I just know I can make the changes to my computer, to the software settings and working with the folks and being a self advocate."

John Harper: That's what that success is, without feeling like you're stepping out of place too, that's always somewhat awkward. I think we've all maybe have experienced something like that. How do I ask my boss for something? I don't want to call myself out, I don't want to look like I'm asking for something special or what have you. Or whenever I can come in and partner quietly with that employer too, it's not a big deal. Just maybe they need a work station where we can adapt it so that we can get a wheelchair underneath a countertop, and that business doesn't have the means to do that. That's the type of thing we might do. The other thing that's probably most important are the stats, and it's been such a long time, I can't pull out all of the stats about the dollars that were spent in the VR program. I don't don't know what it is now, but I do know that there was a time with the return on investment, for every federal state dollar that was spent on an individual, there were approximately six to seven tax dollars coming back to the government for that work that was done, great return on investment. Because here's the situation. That individual goes to work. They no longer need federal or state benefits. They have their own insurance. VR, we do a little supplement to get them there. They know that we're a little bit of a safety net if we need it, to come back in, but most people never request any additional services, but they know we're there. And they're just contributing back to the community for many, many years, living their lives. It's a really, really cool program.

 

Jeff Harrell: John, this has been great. I know people have probably learned quite a bit. If someone wanted to reach out to you, what's the best for way for them to reach you?

John Harper: The best way to do it is go ahead and drop me an email, if that would be helpful. My email is John, J-O-H-N.Harper, H-A-R-P-E-R @encorpe.com, that's E-N-C-O-R-P-E.com

Jeff Harrell: John, this has been super helpful. Appreciate you very much. Thanks for all the expertise you brought to the table today, and just enjoyed talking to you.

John Harper: Jeff. Thank you very much for the time. I really do appreciate it.

Jeff Harrell: Well, vocational rehabilitation counselors are doing such great work, so thanks to John for helping us better understand what VR is, how it's making a positive impact for both individuals and communities. Well, this is Jeff Harrell for Tyler Technologies. I'm so glad that you joined me. We've got lots of great episodes planned for the Tyler Tech Podcast. A new episode drops every other Monday, so please join me and we'll talk again soon.