What is VR and What Do They Do?

Every state has a vocational rehabilitation services program funded through the Rehabilitation Services Administration. Each state sets out their own priorities according to their state plan. The North Carolina Division of Vocational Rehabilitation Services (NCDVRS) has three main priorities, according to their state plan: 1) deinstitutionalization; 2) provision of services in the community; and 3) transitioning people with disabilities from school into vocational rehabilitation.

This third priority is important because of the employment focus of the agency, according to Samuel Teruel-Vélez, Program Specialist with NCDVRS.

Deinstitutionalization is critical as part of the Olmstead mandate. Olmstead, a 1999 Supreme Court case, stands for the proposition that people with disabilities have the right to live in the community rather than in institutions as long as they and their doctors agree that it's appropriate. Sadly, six years later, most states have made very little effort toward meaningful compliance with Olmstead.

Part of North Carolina's efforts center around the contracts NCDVR has with Centers for Independent Living to run Personal Assistant (PA) programs. North Carolina's program is entirely consumer controlled, according to Teruel-Vélez, with the consumer responsible for hiring, training, firing and paying the PA. The state provides the payment to the consumer, the consumer pays the PA.

NCDVRS also offers rehabilitation engineering and technology services, which provide services such as home modifications, widening doors, installing lifts, remodeling bathrooms and kitchens. They also provide for the purchase of equipment like wheelchairs and prosthetics when a customer has no independent means of acquiring them, such as private insurance, Medicaid or Medicare. NCDVRS even has dedicated recreation therapists on staff who work to help people with disabilities access their community such as church, public transportation, shopping, restaurants and movies.

VR Offers Culturally Appropriate Services

Alex Velez, a Rehabilitation Counselor for the Deaf in the Raleigh office, is a former NCDVRS client himself. He said that one of the things NCDVRS does is to ensure culturally competent services. They ensure that appropriate counselors or evaluators are assigned to different clients; for example, deaf psychologists might be contracted to provide evaluation of deaf clients. They have Latino vocational evaluators who are integrated into and familiar with Latino culture, on hand to evaluate Latino clients. While there are no evaluation tools that were designed specifically for Latinos or for Spanish speaking individuals, Velez says they have had individual documents translated into Spanish in sort of an ad hoc effort to be culturally compliant, including the application, IPE, or Individualized Plan for Employment, and statement of client rights and responsibilities.

To date, Velez admits that NCDVR hasn't made much of an effort to reach out to the Latino population. Their state plans for vocational rehabilitation and independent living call for such outreach, however; and in recognition of that, North Carolina appointed its first Latino member to the Statewide Independent Living Council, naming Francisco Chavez, a visually impaired recent high school graduate to the post.

Problems Specific to Serving the Immigrant Population

Transitioning high school adolescents to vocational rehabilitation is a big focus in the agency right now, said Velez. One problem, however, is that individuals must be legally eligible to work to receive vocational rehabilitation services, and given North Carolina's large migrant population, a large number of high school adolescents who are undocumented are coming out with nowhere to go. Other states such as Illinois are allowing undocumented immigrants to attend college at in-state tuition rates; however, North Carolina hasn't yet approved such a measure. This puts college out of reach for virtually all the undocumented students.

Velez estimates that about half his clients are using the Ticket-to-Work in an effort to get off Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and go to work, though no hard and fast data on Ticket use has been compiled. There are five Benefit Planning Advocacy and Outreach offices (BPAOs) housed within North Carolina VR to assist consumers with assessing the impact a return to work would have on their benefits.

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