This commentary is by Mike Reilly, development coordinator at Champlain Community Services (www.ccs-vt.org).
March is Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month, a good time to reflect on the contributions Vermonters with intellectual and developmental disabilities are making to their communities and to the state’s economy.
Those contributions, and the work of Vermont’s Developmental Services system, are helping shape national policies aimed at expanding opportunities and protecting the civil rights of citizens with disabilities.
Vermont has earned international recognition for its inclusion of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in the workforce. That’s part of why the state’s system — and the broad array of career and educational options it offers — featured prominently in a report from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights encouraging a similar model be adopted at the national level.
Last year, the commission completed an examination of a labor law that permits employers to pay subminimum wages to workers with disabilities. Originally intended to offer incentives to employers to hire individuals with disabilities, Section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938 allows employers to apply for certificates exempting them from minimum wage requirements for workers with disabilities.
As part of the study, a subcommittee of commissioners made a site visit to Vermont, meeting with self-advocates and families of Vermonters with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and visiting agencies serving people with IDD, before convening an official meeting at the offices of Champlain Community Services in Colchester. (The commission also made a site visit to Virginia and studied five other states as part of its investigation.)
Vermont won Zero Project awards, international honors, for innovative policy in 2017 for its supported employment program and this year for the Vermont Transition and Postsecondary Education Initiative. Last year, Champlain Community Services was short-listed for a Zero Project award for innovative practice for its Way2Work Employment continuum of services.
Dr. Bryan Dague, research assistant professor at the University of Vermont and director of UVM’s Think College program, coordinated the commissioners’ visit. Dague also arranged visits in Burlington to Howard Center’s Project Hire, Project SEARCH at UVM Medical Center, as well as UVM’s College of Education and Social Services, UVM Center on Disability and Community Inclusion and Think College.
Some employers holding Section 14(c) certificates employ people with IDD in separate workspaces, so-called “sheltered workshops.” There, employees work primarily with other people with disabilities and, as the civil rights commission report states, “not integrated into a broader community … in sheltered workshops without contact with persons without disabilities (other than those is support or supervisory roles).”
Vermont made the decision to phase out sheltered workshop decades ago and, when Champlain Community Services closed its workshop in 2002, became the first state in the U.S. to eliminate segregated workshops entirely.
Dague cited a wide array of benefits flowing from inclusive employment for people with disabilities, including increased income, a sense of contribution, skill acquisition, increased confidence, independence, identity, social connections and the opportunity for people to develop meaningful careers.
He emphasized that employers and the wider community also benefit from the social inclusion and diversity people with developmental disabilities bring to the workforce through improved morale, customer loyalty overall productivity and their unique gifts and talents.
Still, sheltered workshops remain. There are still over 1,500 such workshops employing over 100,000 persons with disabilities, and the civil rights commission received a significant number of public comments supporting them.
“I understand the transformation of services can seem difficult and daunting, but it can and should be done,” said Dague, who has served as a consultant to agencies making the transition around the country.
Brent Hewey, associate director, has worked at Champlain Community Services long enough to experience its sheltered workshop and the process of transition to a community-based approach. He acknowledged there were challenges and “nervous times” in the early stages, but said the transition ultimately succeeded. CCS now operates Way2Work, which offers a unique continuum of employment services focused on career development within the competitive economy.
“We have proven over time that everyone has a place in the business world,” said Michelle Paya, director of Way2Work. “Eighty-one percent of people served at our agency are working, and they’re bringing their skills to employers in the competitive economy. Having folks with disabilities in the workforce is a win-win in so many ways.”
Karen Hussey, senior manager of Project Hire at Howard Center in Burlington, echoed Paya’s assessment. “Project Hire has assisted individuals to find meaningful, competitively paid employment since 1982,” she said. “Employers counted on these workers throughout the pandemic and our program has supported individuals in keeping those jobs.”
The civil rights commissioners learned that Vermonters with intellectual and developmental disabilities find education to employment transition supports and postsecondary options. Champlain Community Services offers Bridging, an academic year program, offered in partnership with five Chittenden County high schools, that includes career exploration and deep community engagement opportunities and the Think College program at UVM provides a postsecondary educational, vocational and social experience or students with disabilities, including intellectual disabilities.
Project SEARCH is an immersive, business-led, one-year transition-to-work employment preparation program that takes place entirely at the workplace and culminates in individualized job development. In Burlington, UVM Medical Center hosts Project SEARCH in collaboration with Howard Center and South Burlington High School.
Project SEARCH Instructor Deb Baker Moody met with the U.S. civil rights commissioners on their site visit. “The group was impressed with the variety of internships that we have at the medical center,” she said. “Interns spoke about how proud they felt working at UVM Medical Center and that they like meeting new people in each of their departments.”
Ultimately, the commission recommended an end to subminimum wages and called for fuller inclusion of people with disabilities, including those with IDD. In releasing the final report report, commission Chair Catherine Lhamon said, “The commission today calls for the end of the Section 14(c) program, because it continues to limit people with disabilities from realizing their full potential.”
The report called on Congress to repeal Section 14(c) and expand funding to transition segregated programs to supported employment service models prioritizing competitive integrated employment, allowed for a planned phaseout of current Section 14(c) programs.
In welcoming the commission’s recommendations, Dague noted that Vermonters have benefitted from being a bit ahead of the curve in this transition process.
“When people with disabilities are in and part of the community, the community is richer for it,” he said. “It has been 18 years since we had sheltered workshops in Vermont, and we have not looked back.”
Fortunately, Vermont left an important path for others to follow.