1
Employment Concerns
FINAL REPORT
Accessing the World of Work: Concerns of African Americans with
Disabilities Actively Seeking Employment
Kimberly Hall M. A. and Fabricio Balcazar, Ph.D.
University of Illinois at Chicago
Submitted to the
Disability Research Institute
July 1, 2005
The work presented here was performed pursuant to a grant (10-P-98360-5-047) from the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) funded as part of the Disability Research Institute. The opinions and conclusions expressed are solely those of the author(s) and should not be construed as representing the opinions or policy of SSA or any agency of the Federal Government.
Abstract
The Concerns Report Method, a participatory needs assessment technique, was used to identify the major employment strengths and problemsamong a sample of African Americans with disabilities living in an urban, Midwestern city. First, a working group of 10 African Americans with disabilities selected 30 items that represented important issues from the Employment Concerns Index to include on the survey. Next, the resulting survey was administered to 210 respondents recruited from a local job fair and four local offices of the Illinois Department of Rehabilitation Services, who ranked each issue in terms of importance and satisfaction. These rankings were analyzed in order to ascertain the top employment strengths and problems. The strengths identified suggest that there is a great deal of self-confidence regarding employment among members of this group and that overall, they are satisfied with the quality of education and job training available to them. The problems suggest the need for improved relationships with rehabilitation counselors and prospective employers, and access to financial support for needs such as health insurance, educational costs, and work-related expenses when starting a new job. These findings were presented in a town hall meeting that was held to allow participants and professionals in the field an opportunity to provide their insights on the major issues and to suggest alternatives for addressing the problemsidentified through the survey. A Concerns Report was prepared to document the entire process and the outcomes corresponding outcomes.
Productive gainful employment is essential to the well being of Americans and their families. Yet, more than two thirds of working-age Americans who have disabilities are not part of the labor force, meaning they are neither working nor looking for work (La Plante, Kennedy, Kaye, & Wenger, 1996). Furthermore, among people with disabilities who are labor force participants, the 13% unemployment rate is more than double the rate for people without disabilities (5.6%). In all, only 28% of working-age people with disabilities have jobs (4.7 out of 16.9 million), compared to 76% of those without disabilities (La Plante, Kennedy, Kaye, & Wenger, 1996). Among African Americans with disabilities who are overrepresented among the general population of people with disabilities, as well as those receiving benefits from the Social Security Administration, less than 20% are employed (Belgrave, 1998). Notwithstanding these facts, there is both anecdotal and empirical evidence which suggests that the majority of people with disabilities, including African Americans, want to work (Belgrave, 1998; Harris, 1986, 1995).
There may be several reasons why people with disabilities are not working. For some, the severity of their impairments may prohibit them from working. While others may simply lack the human capital (skills, education, and experience) necessary to be competitive in the labor market. Alternatively, for some, the physical and social barriers in the environment may be insurmountable. The current study sought to shed light on the irony of why significant numbers of African Americans with disabilities who want to work and feel that they have the capacity to work remain unemployed or underemployed. The goal of this study was to identify the employment needs ofAfrican Americans with disabilities who are actively seeking employment.
This study builds on previous research conducted by the current investigators (Hall & Balcazar, 2001). In an earlier study, a series of three focus groups were conducted with African Americans recruited from a job fair for people with disabilities in Chicago to focus on the issues they encountered and their experiences in the employment-seeking process. The goal of the study was to identify supports and barriers to employment. Through a content analysis of the focus group transcripts, several themes emerged which were classified as supports or barriers. Issues that were raised consistently in one or more of the focus groups were considered important themes.
The supports to employment that were identified included (a) receiving social support from family and friends; (b) being comfortable asking for formal and informal support; (c) having knowledge of and access to employment and/or vocational services; (d) having positive andproductive relationships with rehabilitation counselors and/or other service providers; (e) having knowledge of, and preferably experience, navigating social service bureaucracies to get needed services and resources; (f) having access to a privately-owned vehicle; (g) having access to transportation assistance through the paratransit system; and (g) having strong spiritual beliefs and values. It is important to note that it was seldom the case that every participant had access to these supports. On the contrary, the majority of strengths were identified because the focus group participants consistently referred to them as things that would have been helpful in their efforts to obtain employment.
Barriers to employment were: (a) discrimination and negative treatment by employers and service providers (participants gave examples which suggested thiscould be due to their age, disability, and/or race), (b) limited and/or accessible transportation; (c) the absence of formal networks and sufficient outreach on the part of service providers to obtain information about opportunities for services and employment; (d) limited opportunities to participate in decision-making regarding training and education options; (e) inadequate evaluations and assessments; (f) limited job placement opportunities; (g) lack of resources for childcare; (h) and fear of losing health insurance and Social Security benefits.
The supports and barriers identified through this study provide insight into the experiences and challenges encountered by African Americans with disabilities in the process of becoming employable and when they look for work. This study served as a springboard for the current investigation in that it confirms the need for a better understanding of the low rates of employment among African Americans with disabilities. The current study attempts to validate these qualitative findings in a larger sample using a quantitative measure and to extend this earlier research by seeking the insight of the community in developing recommendations.
The Concerns Report Method
The Concerns Report Method (CRM) (Schriner & Fawcett, 1988a, 1988b), a technique for conducting participatory needs assessments, was employed in the current investigation to identify the major issues affecting employment among African Americans with disabilities. The CRM has its roots in the ideologies and practices of action research (Lewin, 1944), community development (Spiegel, 1979), and community organizing (Alinsky, 1971). It promotes consumer involvement in identifying issues of importance, evaluating current conditions, and suggesting recommendations for addressing the identified issues (Fawcett, Seeking, Whang, Muiu, & Suarez de Balcazar, 1982).
The CRM was developed in response to the perception that needs assessments rely too heavily on service providers, program administrators, researchers and other experts to specify what will be judged and how judgments will be made (Schriner & Fawcett, 1988a). Needs assessment surveys typically contain questions of interest to the agency administrators or the survey designers and ask only about the need for services that are already available or those being considered. They usually fail to inquire about the relative importance of the services in question, and often inquire about citizen satisfaction with only limited aspects of the community, limiting the usefulness of the needs assessment. Community surveys are similarly limited in that even though they are able to provide some indication of current satisfaction with predetermined aspects of the community, they give little guidance with respect to the possible steps to address satisfaction.In contrast, the CRM enables citizens to specify the issues to be considered and their degree of importance and satisfaction (Schriner & Fawcett, 1988a, 1988b). This dual appraisal of the relative importance and satisfaction of various issues facilitates the development of recommendations for building on and improving local conditions. These recommendations are derived from, and reflect, shared community perspectives on which conditions are important.
Previous research demonstrates that the CRM is a reliable and valid technique for identifying strengths and problems from the perspective of consumers. It has been used successfully to develop action agendas for poverty clients of a local human service agency (Seekins & Fawcett, 1987), patients, staff, and guardians of psychiatric institutions (Fawcett, Muiu, Seekins, Whang, Fletcher, & Hannah, 1982), families with disabled children, and persons with physical disabilities (Fawcett et al, 1986). A review of reliability and validity assessments that have been conducted are included in the method section that follows.
Although the CRM was originally developed to identify concerns regarding community life in general, it has been used with a variety of groups to identify major employment concerns. Researchers have used the CRM to identify the employment needs of college students with disabilities (Schriner & Roessler, 1990), deaf university students (Schriner, Roessler, & Raymer, 1991), people with head injuries (Roessler, Schriner, & Price, 1992), members of the Epilepsy Foundation of America (Roessler, Schriner, & Troxell, 1990), people with multiple sclerosis (Rumrill, Roessler, Koch, 1999), people who are blind or visually impaired (Gillies, Knight & Baglioni, 1998; Wolffe, Roessler, & Schriner, 1992) and people with spina bifida (Schriner, Roessler & Johnson; 1993).
As used in this study, the method includes four basic elements: (a) an Employment Concerns Index (item pool) from which a unique set of survey items is selected; (b) an Employment Concerns Survey consisting of the items selected by a working group of individuals with characteristics representative of the larger community formatted to gather importance and satisfaction ratings for each item; (c) data analysis and a corresponding report identifying the major strengths and problems; and (d) a town hall meeting in which participants provide their interpretation of strengths and problems and suggest actions that might be taken to address them.
Methods
Consistent with the CRM, this study was conducted in three phases. During the first phase, a working-group of African Americans with disabilities selected survey items. During the second phase, the survey was administered and major concerns were identified. In the final phase, concerns were defined from the perspective of consumers and recommendations for addressing the major concerns were generated during a town hall meeting. For ease of presentation and understanding, the method for each phase will be described separately.
Phase I
Participants
The working group was comprised of 10 African Americans with disabilities. Of the 10 working group members, five had a physical disability, one had a sensory disability, one had a learning disability, one had a mental illness, and two had multiple disabilities. Three working group members had congenital disabilities, while three suddenly acquired a disability and the other four developed disabilities over time. Working group members ranged in age from 20 to 57, yet almost half were between 35 and 45. There were an equal number of males and females. All ten working group members had at least a high school diploma. Six had some post-secondary education or training (i.e., college, vocational or technical) and two earned a degree or certificate. All but two had worked before.
Recruitment
Working group members were recruited from a pool of 22 participants from a previous focus group study conducted by the researchers on barriers to employment among African Americans with disabilities (Hall & Balcazar, 2001). The participants for the focus group study were recruited at a citywide job fair for people with disabilities in November of 2000. Working group members for the current study were selected with the goal of including individuals with a range of ages, disability types, levels of education and disability onset circumstances. Gender and work history were also considered. Potential group members were contacted, given a description of the study, and participation was requested. All of the individuals contacted agreed to participate.
Instrument
Developed by the authors for use in this study, the Employment Concerns Index was adapted from the broader Community Concerns Index (Schriner & Fawcett, 1988a, 1988b). The index consisted of 150 items which integrates core human values such as freedom, justice and self-esteem in statements related to employment. The foundations for these statements were important issues identified in the literature review for this study and the findings from the focus group study described above (Hall & Balcazar, 2001). One item, for example, “You are not discriminated against in the employment process (application, interviewing, hiring, etc.)” relates the notion of justice to employer practices.
Procedure
Once participants for the working-group were identified, they were mailed the following: (a) a letter describing the purpose of the study and the survey development process, (b) the Employment Concerns Index, (c) the logistics and agenda for the working group meeting, and (d) contact information. The letter asked that they select 20 items reflecting their top concerns with a focus on both problems and strengths. They were also given the option to nominate items that were not included on the index and/or to reword any item in the index.
Working group members submitted their selections upon arrival to the working group session. The meeting began with introductions, a description of the study, and an overview of the Concerns Report Method. Participants were also provided with a sample survey and a sample 1-page Concerns Report to demonstrate how the survey would ultimately be formatted and how strengths and problems are identified. Following this general overview, participants completed a demographic sheet and ate the meal that was provided.
Meanwhile, the nominated items were organized and compiled to facilitate the discussion and final item selection that would follow. Items were organized based on the categories from the index and ordered based on the number of times they were nominated. A 2-hour discussion in which participants debated whether or not nominated items were important enough to include on the survey followed. Through a structured process of elimination, thirty items were selected for inclusion on the survey. At the end of the working group session, working-group members received a $50 cash stipend as compensation for their time and expertise.
Phase II
Participants
The sample for this phase of the study was comprised of 210 African-American adults with disabilities living in Chicago. In addition to being African American and having a disability, the criteria for participation included: (a) being working-age (i.e., between the ages of 16 and 64), and (b) seeking employment. Individuals engaged in the following activities met the study definition of seeking employment: conducting job searches, applying and interviewing for jobs, receiving job training, awaiting job placement, presently working but seeking alternative or additional employment, and/or receiving vocational rehabilitation services.
Table 1 presents the demographic characteristics of the sample. The mean age of survey respondents was 37.38, slightly more of whom were male (58%). The majority were not married (74%). Just over half had one or more children, and less than half of that group (or 24% of the overall sample) had dependent children. Only 9% of those with children indicated that they would have difficulty securing childcare if they were working. About 30% lived alone, 60% lived with others in a house or apartment and just over 10% were in a group living arrangement. The majority of the respondents had at least a high school diploma (80%) and almost half (47%) reported at least some college. More than half of the respondents reported having two or more disabling conditions. The disability type identified as the one that most affected ability to work was physical disability, followed by cognitive, sensory and mental. The majority reported that their disability developed over time, 27% had a congenital disability and 22% acquired a disability suddenly. The most commonly reported source of income was SSI or SSDI benefits from the Social Security Administration (55%), followed by work, family and/or self-employment. The primary mode of transportation for almost two-thirds of the sample was public transportation buses and trains, 23% used their own vehicle, and only 10% used the paratransit service.
The vocational and rehabilitation characteristics of the sample are presented in Table 2. Ninety-three percent of survey respondents were actively seeking employment; a quarter of whom were already working at the time, but still seeking additional employment. Almost 15% had never been employed. Nearly 80% of those who became disabled after birth had work experience prior to the disability. Of those with previous work experience, 65% felt that they had the capacity to do the same type of work. Just over a third of the respondents had been looking for work a year or more. Of those who were not working, more than half had been out of work for over a year. Less than 10% felt their disability limited their ability to get a job “a lot,” and 23% felt they were not limited at all. Meanwhile, more than a third felt their disability “somewhat” limited their ability to keep a job. Almost 60% of the respondents had participated in vocational rehabilitation before, and 36% were presently receiving services.