Research about Latinos generally, and about Latinos with disabilities in particular, has been virtually nonexistent, according to Rene Luna, team leader of Community Economic Development team at Access Living Center for Independent Living in Chicago.

In his 18 years of experience in the disability rights field, says Luna, he came to realize that people with disabilities have been left out of most important research. Doing his part to remedy the situation, he joined forces with Brigida Hernandez, Assistant Professor at DePaul University in Chicago, on a three-year project entitled "Including the Voices of Marginalized Communities in Research: the Disability Perspective" which was funded by the National Institute on Disability Rehabilitation and Research (NIDRR).

New Research on Employment & People with Disabilities Including Latinos
As a result of their work, Luna and Hernandez learned that as of 1995, 1.3 million people with disabilities nationwide were participating in vocational rehabilitation, with 16 percent of them becoming employed. Two years later, in 1997, the Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Improvement Act was signed into law. The purpose of the legislation was to increase choices regarding the provision of vocational rehabilitation services, benefits planning, and the creation of employment networks (ENs), with the goal of getting one-half of 1 percent of people with disabilities off of Social Security benefits and back to work.

The Ticket to Work program functions through the issuance of a paper "ticket" which the individual with a disability can then turn in to an EN for services leading to employment. As of January 2006, 11 million tickets had been issued nationwide. Of those tickets, 8,724 were assigned to the 1,382 registered ENs around the country. The state vocational rehabilitation agencies received 107,554 of the tickets.

Through focus groups, surveys and town hall meetings, Luna and Hernandez explored the employment needs of people with disabilities. They interviewed 74 people of working age, 68 percent men and 32 percent women, 61 percent Latino, 22 percent African American and 18 percent White, with a wide range of disability types. Eighteen percent had no high school diploma, 38 percent had graduated high school. Fifty-four percent had incomes of less than $1,000 per month, and 60 percent were social security beneficiaries. While 87 percent had previous employment experience only 15 percent were currently working.

Through their research Luna and Hernandez found there were basically three paths people with disabilities took to work: 1) informal networks such as friends and family; 2) employment through the vocational rehabilitation (VR) system; and 3) employment through the Ticket to Work.

The Latinos cited language barriers, cultural differences, lack of information and networking problems as major barriers to employment, whether they pursued employment with the help of the VR agency or used one of the other methods. Problems experienced within the VR system include the quality of jobs available, non-responsive and non-collaborative VR counselors, and the complexity of the information available on the Ticket to Work program.

The top overall barriers to employment, however, were fear of losing medical or cash benefits and negative employer attitudes as well as lack of physical access or accommodations on the job. Lack of accessible, reliable transportation was cited as a factor as were lack of sign and foreign language translation.

The primary purpose of the research, says Luna, was to improve public policy; include people with disabilities as peers in the benefits planning process; expand the use of benefit planners; offer educational and professional opportunities that emphasize career development; and encourage VR to develop and move to a career-planning model instead of a job placement model.

Study on Latina Girls & Education
Luna and Hernandez aren't the only ones in the country focusing research on Latinos today. Eleanor Gil Kashiwabara, Research Assistant Professor at Portland State University, recently concluded a project she calls HALA, Helping all Latinas Achieve. HALA was focused on the educational experience of Latinas with disabilities, because she says " Educators need to understand how they're squelching the dreams of Latinas with disabilities."

HALA, funded by the US Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs, was designed to investigate the experiences and transition needs of Latinas in special education, identify barriers to and strategies for promoting transition, and to develop a formal manual of guidelines to respond to the needs of Latinas in special education.

An alarming statistic, says Kashiwabara, is that the high school graduation rate for Latinas with disabilities is lower than for any other racial or ethnic group, and they have the highest drop out rate of any other group. Once they've dropped out, she says, Latinas are the least likely to ever return and complete their education.

Like Luna and Hernandez, Kashiwabara used surveys and focus groups to get her information. She surveyed both Latina and Anglo girls as well as their parents, focusing on girls age 14-21, who were in special education.

Important cultural differences were evident in the survey responses, with Latinas more likely to say it was important that they stayed living in the family home even if they went to work. One finding that Kashiwabara didn't expect was that both Latinas and their parents said it was important for them to attend college.

The importance of family and spirituality in the Latino culture, as well as a need to combat the stereotype that Latinos don't value higher education must be recognized and dealt with in order to effectively educate Latinos, particularly those with disabilities, says Kashiwabara.

Increasing Capacity of Community Programs to Serve Latinos
A third research project investigating the Latino population was recently conducted at the University of Texas Pan American, by Tom Shefcik, Associate Professor, who served as principal investigator. Shefcik studied how to increase the capacity of community rehabilitation programs to provide services to Latinos with disabilities.

His project looked at barriers to services, taking into account community rehabilitation programs like Goodwill, Easter Seals and community mental health facilities as well as other community-based programs.

Barriers identified included transportation, language, the concept of time, lack of knowledge of rehabilitation, low expectations of job placement and lack of access to assistive technology.

Solutions included diversity training for the community rehabilitation programs, hiring and training staff from diverse backgrounds as well as conducting more research into the issues.

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