The Essential Elements of Customized Employment: Results From a National Survey of Employment Providers

Abstract

Customized employment (CE) is designed to meet the specific needs and interests of individuals with disabilities as well as the needs of the employer by using flexible strategies at every stage of employment. The objective of this study was to ask rehabilitation providers who implement these services to describe the current status of CE service delivery. An online survey was administered to employment professionals from agencies within the United States. Participants responded to questions on the unique characteristics of Discovery and job development, current use of CE services, and information on their personal and agency demographics. Results indicate that there is agreement among CE providers on critical Discovery and job development activities, which suggests that providers are regularly accessing information to inform their practice. There appears to be a gap between what respondents identify as critical activities and how well they are being implemented. Recommendations for providing CE training for providers and provisions for individuals with disabilities are explored.

Use of Customized Employment in State Vocational Rehabilitation Programs: A Retrospective Study 2017–2020

“…Another concern is the capacity of agencies to provide CE that adheres to the fidelity of implementation (Riesen et al, in press). Inge and her colleagues (2020) found that there is a significant gap between what rehabilitation professionals identify as critical CE activities and how well they report the activities are being implemented. These gaps raise questions about the capacity of service providers to implement elements of CE with a high degree of fidelity.…”

“…Inge and her colleagues (2020) conducted a survey to describe the current status of CE service delivery as viewed by rehabilitation providers. They found that service providers generally agree about the CE discovery and job development activities that are critical to service delivery.…”

Linking Process and Outcome Measures to Improve Employment Support Programs for Individuals With the Most Significant Disabilities

“…Effective implementation of CE requires the qualified employment specialist to understand each component process of the discovery and customized job development. While it appears that qualified employment specialists are trained to implement critical components of CE, they are not implementing the components to fidelity ( 30 ). Integrating process measures with proximal and distal outcome measures can be used to ensure fidelity to intervention, evaluation, and adjusting components of the CE process.…”

Customized employment as a pathway to competitive integrated employment: An analysis of RSA 911 data of state vocational rehabilitation agencies with the highest use of this intervention

“…In fact, only 21.1% of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities work in competitive integrated employment settings, while the remaining 78.9% receive services in facility-based work and non-work settings (Winsor, et al, 2021). There is ongoing research that supports the utility of CE as a rehabilitation service that can be used to improve the poor employment outcomes for individuals with the significant disabilities (Inge, et al, 2022;Riesen, et al, 2021a;Riesen, et al, 2021b).…”