Evaluating Informed Choice

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Evaluating Informed Choice

• Rosemary Gallagher
• Washington State DVR

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Why Evaluate Choice?

• Information anecdotal
• Validate information
• Understand best practices
• Incorporate best practices into DVR

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Participant Empowerment Project (PEP)

• One of seven RSA demonstration grants
• Used a rehabilitation team approach to that
  allowed participants to define their strengths
  and have those strengths determine their
  vocational direction

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PEP Design

• Each participant received an orientation to PEP -
  program description, program parameters
  expectations
• Participants received a wide menu of
  informational classes

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PEP Design

• Participants formed their own rehab team
• Team helped participant develop vocational plans
  that reflected their interest and strengths

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PEP Design

• Team helped determine how much money to allocate
  towards planned services
• Participants controlled their budget
• Participant negotiated for the services they
  wanted directly with community providers

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PEP/ Cherry Street Study

• Purpose
• To determine the impact of choice practices
• To identify best practices at PEP for potential
  incorporation within the DVR system

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Method

• Match Participants
• Disability Type
• Age (within two years)
• Gender
• Ethnicity

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PEP / Cherry Street Study

• Factors targeted for comparison included
• Number of successful rehabilitations
• Participant wages
• Cost of service
• Overall time in service

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Closure Data

• Rehab Other
• Cherry St 29 71
• PEP 52 48

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Conclusion

• PEP rehabilitated a greater proportion of people
  than the Cherry Street Office

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Participants Average Wages

• Cherry St 7.42
• PEP 12.55
• Conclusion PEP participants received a
  significantly higher average wage than Cherry St.
  participants

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Average Cost of Service

• Cherry St 1,785.99
• PEP 1,552.22
• Conclusion PEP services cost less than Cherry
  St - much less than chance variation would
  predict

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Average Time in Service

• Cherry St 401 days
• PEP 420 days
• Conclusion Participants spent about an equal
  amount of time in Cherry St. and PEP

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What We Learned

• Vocational counseling should consistently
  emphasize strengths
• Involve others (rehab team)
• Concurrently use a variety of job search
  strategies
• Participant control of dollars fosters ownership
  and responsibility

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Our Next Steps

• Designed a study to incorporate the rehab team
  process within the general program
• It appeared to be the safest lesson to implement

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Rehab Team Study

• Preliminary Results
• Overlaying one choice strategy into an existing
  system is difficult
• Reasons
• Difficulty switching gears
• Making time when pressure to produce numbers
• Caseload size
• Too many changes at same time (WIA, CSPD, etc.)

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Challenges

• Examine the infrastructure - computer tracking
  systems, fiscal policies, management,
  consultants, providers - all need to flow from
  the principles of participant choice and control
• Find ways to give participants control, not just
  options

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• The important thing is to never stop
  questioning.
• - Einstein