Students with Significant Disabilities
and On-going Support Needs Can Work Successfully!
by Marie Westfall

Supported Employment is “integrated, paid, employment in the community along side non-disabled co-workers, with ongoing support for the life of the job”.

Supported Employment is a very individualized and custom-tailored vocational option developed for individuals with significant disabilities who have on-going support needs. This model of employment was developed for people with the most significant disabilities who were not becoming “ready” to work though the more traditional segregated options. Supported employment is based on the premise that everyone is ready to be in the community now. People with the most serious impact of disability are in the most need of learning skills in actual environments where they will use them - the community. By discovering the individual’s contributions and support needs and creatively matching those to an employer’s unmet needs, where the right amount of support is provided, you have the makings for a successful partnership.

How Does Supported Employment Work?
Keys to successful supported employment start with discovering the student’s contributions and interests in the area of work. One tool used to discover these is the Vocational Profile, a format which guides the student’s team to gather information about abilities, interests, and support needs students have in order to be successful at performing these talents. This process includes in-depth conversations with the student and people who know them well such as family, friends, school personnel, etc. about their likes, dislikes, interests, and lifestyle. It encompasses quality observations in school, at home, on jobs, as well as historical information about the student’s life.

Once the discovery of the above information is complete, the team, with other important members who could make a difference in the student’s work future, meet to take the process one step further. An Employment Planning meeting is held to summarize student’s ideal working conditions, preferences, and types of job tasks the student could successfully perform and identify specific employers to target for job development. After this meeting a Marketing Portfolio is developed which positively depicts the student working through pictures, and showcases their contributions for potential employers.

The goal of job development is to find a match where the student is fulfilling unmet needs of the employer, either by creating (carving) a position, or filling an existing position for that employer. Characteristics of a good job match include nearly all of the person’s preferences, as well. We all know how important it is to do something we like to do, in a place we like to work, with people we like to work with. Marketing is very targeted and focused. Only employers who meet the ideal characteristics identified during the planning meeting are contacted.

Once the job match has been made and the person is employed, it is important that the person be supported to perform the job up tot he standards set by the employer.

The beauty of supported employment is that a person need only possess certain contributions in order to be a successful and valuable employee. Employers have many unmet needs that students with significant disabilities can fill. With the desire to work, contributions to offer, and support needs being met, anyone with significant disabilities can work! When an employer knows that they are employing a person who wants to work, who can perform the tasks they were hired to do, who has support needs being met in a positive manner suitable for the individual and the employer, then there is realistic expectations that this combination of characteristics will inevitably be successful for everyone involved.

Who Has Supported Employment Worked For?
A young woman who utilizes a communication device, an electric wheelchair, and has significant physical disabilities works very successfully at a large department store performing returns. She has an uncanny memory so she knows the whole store layout and an eye for detail so she places each returned item back on the shelf in the right place, exactly how it should look. Her electric wheelchair allows her to be very efficient in moving around the store and her personality has helped her to delight both customers and co-workers. She had the assistance of a job coach for support to learn her job in the beginning and now works independently. By using the process described above, her contributions were discovered and matched to this employer’s unmet needs. The correct amount of support was available and it’s working! She’s earning $6.00 an hour and working approximately 6 hours a week and is still in high school.

This is just one example of how a student who may not possess every skill known to man is capable of successful employment through Supported Employment. A student does not have to complete work “readiness” in order to be successful in Supported Employment, neither do they need to access Supported Employment by “jumping through the hoops” of a continuum model of services. Discovering what an individual with significant disabilities does have to contribute and how they can be supported in a job situation utilizing those contributions for an employer who needs them is how this type of customized employment works.

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