Webcast: Professional Preparation and Participation of Culturally Diverse Rehabilitation Professionals. Presenters: Dr. Madan Kundu and Dr. Alo Dutta. >> LAUREL: Good morning. This is Laurel Richards at ILRU in Houston. Welcome to today's webcast. We have a very important subject this morning on the Professional Preparation and Participation of Culturally Diverse Practitioners in Rehabilitation. That's alliterative for those of you with an English background. During our presentation today we have Madan Kundu and Alo Dutta from the Rehabilitation Research Institute for Underrepresented Populations there at Southern University in Baton Rouge. And this is a project that is funded through the NIDRR -- the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research. And we will have opportunities for you all to ask questions during this presentation. Right now, you're connected to our web page for this webcast and we've posted information up there for today's presentation. 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So to those of you in the future, next week, next month, next year, 2000 whatever, and you're listening to this, you'll be listening to this from the archives and we get quite a bit of business on the archives. A lot of traffic. We're still here. If you have a problem with listening to the -- or reading the transcript, you call in using the same number and we'll provide assistance here. And for those of us who live by year to year on grants, I sure hope we're here. And you'll see that we will have converted the captioning, which we in realtime are seeing here as text, it will be converted a transcript which you can read as well. So with that, the mechanics out of the way, I'd like to introduce today's presentation. Those of us who work in disability fields, independent living, voc rehab, medical rehab, all fields related to disability, we know that unemployment is among people with disabilities is appallingly low, and just to the same extent that it is low, poverty is high and this is especially true for people who are from culturally diverse backgrounds. And we look to -- addressing this problem we look to the state's federal VR program. Researchers asked what can be done to increase effectiveness, what can be done to help people acquire competitive employment? What steps can be taken? And our colleagues today have conducted research on this, and they are examining -- they have examined this question from a unique perspective as you will hear. Our presenters include Madan Kundu. He's one of the preeminent researchers on issues related to minority populations and people with disabilities. He's a Ph.D, a Fulbright scholar, a professor, and he's the chair of the Department of Rehabilitation and Disability Studies at Southern University which is in Baton Rouge and Southern is a historically black university. He's had over 40 years experience in both national and international rehabilitation. We go back with Madan -- oh, Madan, it must be well 20 years perhaps or more. We've been connected a long time. He's a good colleague and a good friend. And he's the project director of the specific project that's sponsor today's presentation. It's the RRIUP and he's joined by his colleague, Alo Dutta, who is an assistant professor in the Department of Rehabilitation and Disability Studies at Southern. She's received an M. A. in rehab counseling and then went on to a Ph.D. in community health with a specialization in rehabilitation from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign which, Alo, I understand is an excellent postgrad program in rehab related fields. She's been a consultant tort National Council on Disability and for the American Indian Research and Training Center on rehabilitation. And she's -- has served as the coordinator on a Research and Training Center for access to rehabilitation and employment opportunities which was housed at -- which is housed at Howard University in D. C, and she's the principal investigator of the Rehabilitation Research Institute on Underrepresented Populations. So Alo, I want to hand off the presentation to you and thank you and Madan for being with us today. Welcome. >> MADAN: Good morning. We welcome you to this webcast and we appreciate you being on the webcast in spite of your busy schedule. I'd like to say that some of the data we'll be presenting today was supported by NIDRR, National Institute for Disability and Rehabilitation Research, and the project (inaudible). So both of this research was done at Southern University. And now on slide No. 2 that talks about the learning objectives, so this morning we have three major objectives, and the first one that we need to understanding the changing demography of the country and the prevalence of disabilities in the United States. As you know the demography is changing rapidly, almost one part of the population at this time of culturally diverse background, but in 2040 it will be almost like 50/50. So that has implications for education, employment and all spheres of life in the country. Next we'll discuss about the employment and unemployment rates of persons with disabilities. More specifically for culturally diverse populations and third we're going to discuss about how does it relate to the compositions of the rehabilitation professionals in state vocational rehab agencies that relate their experiences and certification and licensure, their salary structure, their work environment, the type of case load, that has impacts on the employment outcomes of persons with disabilities. So these are three major objectives this morning. Dr. Dutta will start with the first two and then we'll stop and ask questions and if you have any questions, we'll clarify that. Then I'll start the third part of the presentation. All right, Alo, you can go ahead. >> ALO: Thanks, Laurel. Here is a brief outline of what exactly we're going to be presenting. At the beginning, we will lay a foundation of the population projections and of people with and without disabilities, the employment and unemployment rates and some of the terms that we use in rehabilitation and I'm pretty sure most of you are familiar with that -- those terms and defined them and give awe few numbers so that given we all know the participation of culturally diverse populations both professionals and clients is relatively low in state/federal vocational rehabilitation and in rehabilitation in general, we will give you some statistics to solidify that belief. I'm on slide No. 3 now. This slide gives you the proportion and number of resident populations in the U.S. in 2000. Well, it is kind of old. That's why this morning I looked up and found some data from 2005, a comparatively newer set of data. In 2005 our population of this country was approximately 288 million. Out of that, about 141 million were males. And there was a similarity between the two genders. And approximately 75 percent were Caucasians. These are all one race. People who identified themselves as one race, 75 percent of people who categorized them as Americans are Caucasians, 12 percent are African Americans, 1 percent are Native Americans or Alaskan natives, 5 percent were Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and 7 percent some other race, that means people with more than two or three races or people who categorize themselves as, for example, a resident alien who are not quite American citizens. Those people comprise about 7 percent of the American population. Slide No. 4, prevalence of disabilities in the U.S. In the year 2004 there were approximately 49 to about 50 million people with disabilities in this country. That was approximately 19 percent of the population, but actually -- and these are people with disabilities who are five years and older. So there would be a few more that are five years and less that are less than five years of age. So 19 percent means approximately one in five people living independently have some form of documented and disclosed disability. And we all know that people with disabilities have generally between poor and fair health. They have less access to health care. They have a higher poverty rate. We're going to expound on those a little later -- a higher poverty rate than the U.S. population. Lower education rate than the U.S. population, more than one disability. A large portion of people with disabilities, especially those who are women and from minority backgrounds, have more than one health conditions that are documented and they also have lower income rates. Lower income and fewer resources. We also know that there is a direct connection between disability and diversity and poverty. So one may cause the other, but one doesn't have to be the effect of the other, but this is how it operates. Not only here, in pretty much all over the world. That means, in other words, poverty does not have to be the result of disability, but in many cases it is. So there has to be some environmental factors related in that to make poverty one of the results of disability or low education one of the results of disability, low employment an outcome of disability. Then we go to slide No. 5. This one came out of the NHIS, the national health interview survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In the year 2005 you have a bar graph with confidence intervals of incidents or prevalence of disability among one, two, three, four, five races, two genders and four age ranges and one total. We expect that the age range of 75 and above will be having a higher proportion of disabilities than the other races -- than the other age ranges. For example, here we see that African Americans have the highest prevalence of disability as far as CDC was concerned, which was a little higher than 20 percent, followed by American Indians, about 17 percent, and the next one would be Caucasians, about 18 percent. The next one, Hispanic, about 15 percent, and the last is Asians, about -- looks like a little less than 10 percent, but then Asians are to a large extent an unaccessed population because they are least studied. There are some amounts of positive stereotype about them which are not entirely true and that's one of the reasons why Asians get left out of these studies that try to establish lack of or under representation of fields. I'm on slide No. 6 employment. Here you see that -- and this is employment of people with and without disability. I will come to employment of people with disability just a little later. In the year 2006, approximately 146 million people in this country out of the 288 within working age range, that means 15 plus, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics categorizes people who are older than 15 to be working age or eligible to work. And here we have two terms -- employment population ratio and labor force participation ratio. What in the world is employment population ratio? Employment population ratio is the total number in a year -- the total number of Americans, 15 or older, who are employed divided by the total working age population multiplied by hundred. In other words, employment population ratio tells you how many people are actually participating in the workforce. That means how many people actually who are older than 15 are in the workforce, that means are employed. And a high employment population ratio means that the economy is creating jobs. New jobs or revamping old ones and also employing a large number of people. So a high ratio is a good thing. The next one is labor force participation rate. There is a difference between employment population ratio and labor force participation rate. Labor force participation rate is calculated likewise this way: The total labor force divided by working age population. What is labor force? The U.S. bureau of labor categorizes labor force as this: Labor force means the total number of people who are 15 and older who are already employed, plus the total number of people who are 15 and older who are looking for a job in the last -- have been looking for a job in the last four months. That means whenever this data are collected, four months preceding that, these people have been looking for a job. So this is the difference. So a high participation rate, that means a high labor force participation rate tells you that a large proportion of people who are 15 and higher are either in the labor force, that means they are either employed or they are actively looking for a job. That means they have every intention to hold a job down if a situation presents itself. So according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, these ratios are not bad for people with and without disabilities in total. Now here is a breakdown among all Caucasians who lived in the U.S. in 2006t labor force participation ratio was 66.5 percent, for African Americans it's 64.4 percent, Asians is 67.1, and Hispanic is 68.7 percent. So according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, these ratios are quite appreciable. Now women -- the participation of women we all know about glass ceiling. We all know about other social and socioeconomic variables that can predict high or low unemployment rate or women participation in the quote-unquote better paying jobs. It is increasing and also in manage year ideal and policy making positions that is also is increasing though that's a good thing. In the previous slide we talked about how many people with disabilities are people with and without disabilities are employed. 146.1 million. Within this 146.1 million, we have another little category, a very small category that's called people who are marginally attached to labor force. That means people who are not a part of labor force yet, who are not looking for a job for the last 12 months. Okay, but these people are not unemployed. That means these people have not decided that, well, I don't want to have anything to do with the labor force -- not yet. So this is 1.4 million of surge marginally attached people. Who are these people? They wanted and are available to look for a job sometime during the 12 months preceding the data collection period. That's one criteria of marginally attached. The next one is they are not counted as unemployed because they have not searched for jobs in four weeks preceding the survey. They are not counted as unemployed. They are part of the employed workforce. Out of these 1.4 million, there are approximately .4 million people that are discouraged. They are starting to believe that whatever jobs are there in the workplace, I'm not really for me, like either imminute up for it or I have other things in my life going on, so it's not going to happen for me right now. So they are a part of that .4 million, and the remaining 1 million would be -- maybe they have worked a little in the last few months, but for reasons that are school-related, family-related, social-related, they can't participate continuously. That means they have been sporadically in and out of work and doing odd jobs. That would be 1 million. They are also counted as people who are employed, not as a part of people who are unemployed. The next slide. Unemployment, 7.1 million in this country in 2006 have been unemployed. And unemployment rate is 4-point # percent according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Any time the rate falls below 6 percent we are doing pretty good. Next you have a few bullets with unemployment rates of men and women, teenagers and four races. Hispanics are included in Caucasians and African Americans -- I'm sorry, Native Americans are not here, unfortunately, just because I couldn't find it. The highest unemployment rate according to this chart is among teenagers followed by African Americans, Hispanic Americans and then Asians and then adult men and women. And out of this 7.1 million, 18.4 percent, that means 1.3 million were unemployed for more than 27 weeks. That means approximately six months. And out of this 7.1 million, 50.9 percent, that means more than half, were unemployed because they lost their job for various reasons. Next slide, unemployment of minorities fell in 2006 to 5.4 percent. But participation of minorities in professional jobs, in higher paying jobs inbound creased. The next slide -- employment parity among adults with disabilities. I just have three races here. That's what I could find. This is CDC data again. There is a comparison between 1997 and 2005. The employment rate of Hispanics increased between -- from 1997 to 2005, but the same for whites and blacks decreased from 1997 to 2005. And male and female, the same thing, their unemployment rates decreased from 1997 to 2005. Now, CPS data, current population survey data for employment rate for people with disabilities and gender. Women with disabilities, it's a trend from 1980 to 2002. 22 years, a woman with disabilities figuring at the bottom, approximately 35 percent employment rate. Men about 36 or 37 percent, but women without disabilities, about 80 percent, a little less than 80 percent. Men without disability a little higher than 85 percent. So U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says that whenever a country's unemployment rate is 6 percent or less, we are doing good. So in case of a woman with disabilities, the unemployment rate was approximately 45 percent. For men the -- the unemployment rate for a woman with disabilities was approximately 65 percent and for men with disabilities it's approximately 61 or 2 percent. So we are doing quite poorly as far as people with disabilities are concerned irrespective of gender. Next slide, it's an NHIS study, that means national health interview survey study. The former one was performed by the U.S. bureau of census and this one by the national institute of health. You do see that women with disabilities, the same in 2002 according to the slide before, their employment rate was about 35 percent. But here all of a sudden the same year, 2002, their employment rate was 40 percent. Everything is a little more than what we saw in the previous chart. How did that happen? U.S. bureau of census and National Institute of Health, they are both surveying the same population, women with disabilities, men with disabilities, women and men without disabilities. So how come the numbers are higher? That's because the National Institute of Health in a lot of cases, they ask their study participants to identify all of their disabilities. That means if Tommy has diabetes and end stage renal failure and neuropathy, he will be taking on systemic, because of diabetes and end stage renal failure, so he will be taken off kidney disease and because of his neuropathy, he will be taking off neurologic conditions. So this person is counted twice. So that's why now you have a higher sample size than you actually have in real life. So that's one of the reasons -- imminute saying that's the only reason, but that is one of the reasons how we define disability. How the Bureau of Census and NIH define disability was one of the reasons why the labor force participation of these two graphs for the same four categories are different. The next chart in the year 2002 -- this is people with long term disabilities. Previously we saw people with disability in general, long and short term disabilities, but here CPS current population survey for people with long term disability status and gender. The participation rate for a woman is even lower than men, 20 percent. So people with long term disability, men and women, in the year 2002 an unemployment rate of about 80 percent. That's very high. Slide No. fourteen. The employment rate of people with disabilities is hovering around 36 to 37 percent, but, you know, depending on which year it is, if you're going to -- how people with disabilities are receiving VR services and many other factors. So about 18 million out of those 49 million to 50 million people with disabilities in the year 2004 were in the labor force. Approximately 23 percent of these people have full time, year-round jobs. And labor earnings from full-time work, approximately $30,000 for people with disabilities. Household income, $35,000 for people with disabilities, and poverty rates, approximately 25 percent for people with disabilities. What exactly is poverty rate? The U.S. Department of Labor categorizes in 2004 -- categorized poverty as this: For a family of four people, including two children under the age of 18, if the family's yearly income was 18,850, the family is said to be living under the poverty level. So keeping that in mind, people with disabilities, 25 percent of them fall under that. For example, in the year 2004, if a family of one person like me, a family of one person earns equal to or less than approximately $9,000 per year, then that family or that person is said to be living under a poverty level. So people with disabilities -- one fourth of people with disabilities live under the poverty level. And poverty levels for Alaska and Hawaii are a little higher because they their cost of living is higher. And there is no established poverty level for any of the U.S. territory and Puerto Rico. Next slide, slide No. 15. We all know that people with disabilities are a part of a contingent labor force. That means if there -- they are hired last and let go of first, I'm not talking about employers in general, but generally if -- but on a regular basis if a person with a disability and a person without a disability are qualified applicants for a job, it just ends up that a person without a disability gets the job more readily than a person with disabilities. They also work odd hours. They also work weekends, mostly hold seasonal and part-time jobs. As we discussed before, they are higher unemployment rate than any other populations. A lot of them are low paid and deadened, but you know, let's look at it this way -- because of disadvantages of people with disabilities, especially women and those with minority backgrounds go through, a lot of times they come into vocational rehabilitation because this is one of the largest service providers in the nation to people with disabilities. The V.A. is another one also. A lot of these people who are women and minorities and have disabilities when they come into VR, there is a lot of differ own/between a large proportion of these people with a large proportion of Caucasians with disabilities who are coming into VR. Reasons can be varied. So with the well intentioned counselor, with the well prepared counselor, and a good labor market to fall back on, just so much could be done and also we have to keep in our mind that resources are hard to come by. So only that much could be done, but there have been studies. I can't remember the citations right off the top of my head at this time, if socioeconomic status of people with disabilities is controlled for -- that means Caucasian with a disability of the same or similar socioeconomic status as an African American, Hispanic American, American Indian, Asian American with disabilities, if their VR outcomes are compared, on a long-term basis the comparisons yield results -- VR does almost equally well for a person with a disability, no matter what race and gender they are if there is -- if their socioeconomic status is controlled for. So socioeconomic status is a very, very important variable in the life of anyone, people with or without disability. It's so -- it compounds so much and it's so complex. And also we know that people with disabilities -- a large number of them, especially minorities and women, are under insured or uninsured and so less access to health care, maybe more secondary and other co-morbid disabilities. Slide No. 16 gives you a table of average and weekly hours worked, a comparison from 1991 to 1999. I apologize for the datedness of this data, but there is a difference in the number of weekly hours worked between people with and without disabilities. Slide No. 17. Economic well-being of working age population with disabilities comparing the change between 1989 and 2000, mean household income of men with disability -- without disability increased 9.4 percent and for women, mean household income, that means if a man or a woman were a head of the household, then for a man the mean household income increased by 9.5 percent on average. For a woman, the mean household income of households whose head of households were women, increased by 12 percent. And for people without disabilities, irrespective of gender, employment rate was (inaudible). There is a typo there. It should read employment rate was procyclical. What that means is during the recession of the economy and recovery of economy, men and women without disabilities, employment fell and rose. That means during a recession, their employment rate kind of fell. That means their employment participation went down and during recovery their employment participation went up. So it's kind of reasonable. But look at what happens to people without disabilities -- people with disabilities. For people with disabilities, men, that means a man with a disability who is a head of a household, between 1989 and 2000, that kind of household annual income fell -- decreased by 2.9 percent. For a woman, that means a woman with disabilities who is a head of a household, the annual income increased by 5.6 percent. A good thing. But employment rates fell no matter whether it's a recession or recovery. For people without disabilities, the employment rate fell during a recession, improved during recovery. But irrespective of the economic cycle, the employment rate of people with disabilities, men and women, both fell whether it's recession or recovery. Possible reasons -- I do not have any intention of saying that these are the only reasons or these reasons cannot be refuted, but these may be some possible reasons of low participation of people with disabilities in the workplace and in community life in general. More women have disabilities than men and there are several family-related, economic, education factors and race-related factors that compound with identification of gender which is women. Jobs may have changed in ways that make it more difficult. People without disability, or the so-called temporarily able-bodied people, they have enough challenges to change from one type of job to the other in this very volatile but very strong economy. At this point the U.S. economy is said to be quite strong, but it's still volatile a little because we have outsourcing. We have technology changes. We have academic preparation changes. All of these -- people without disabilities have enough problem adapting to that. So we mentioned before that people with disabilities who sometimes may come into the labor force with maybe built-in disadvantages which can be related to disability, but does not have to be, they have more challenges dealing with this kind of volatility it of our job market. Declining job security -- now most of us don't have one career anymore. We come into the labor force as one and retire as another one. So that's why people change jobs, so less job security, and that is why less attachment between the employer and the employee. Rising health care costs -- there is a wide misconception about the type of health care dollars people with disabilities may require if they have -- if they are employed by a specific employer. So that plays up the fact that a lot of people with disabilities are -- should not be employed in certain industries depending on what the perception of that employer or the industry is. So that contributes to lower employment rate of people with disabilities and so-called qualified people with disability who would otherwise qualify for the job had it not been that effect of their disability that the employer is under the impression. Increasing the number of working population with significant disabilities. That means people identifying themselves as able to work versus people with disabilities. We have so many disadvantages for people with and without disabilities for working. Even though because of TWWIIA and other legislation, these disadvantages are supposed to decrease. But still think of somebody who has applied for SSDI. It takes 91 percent -- I think it is 91 percent of first time SSDI applicants are rejected the first time. And I think the proportion of rejection the second time is substantially lower than 91 percent. So when you or I as a person with a disability have spent time trying to figure out why I cannot work, even though those reasons not justified, we start believing in those. So our social network, our medical network, our insurance network are such that sometimes we come to believe the fact that we are unable to work even though in real life we could. So the effect of those networks sometimes negatively impact participation rate of people with disabilities. Slide No. 18, many jobs are destroyed, but many jobs are also created. That is apparent from changes in the total employment rate. In August 2003, more than 8.3 million jobs have been created. Now, we talk about outsourcing a lot. I'm sure there are credible evidences and credible reasons for -- against outsourcing, but also at the same time I was just reading an article before this presentation that came out of the Silicon Valley. We all know that outsourcing brings down the total cost of production. Production of anything, whether it's software or anything because, for example, they said that in India a systems analyst earns one-sixth of what they pay a systems analyst with the same kind of proficiency and the same kind of productivity in this country. So that ends up in saving a substantial amount of production cost for the industry. And in turn, the industry could create other -- it does not always have to be unskilled, low paid or semiskilled jobs. They could create other skills. They might fill unfilled jobs in the same industry for people month work on here. And from the Silicon Valley they have made a projection that by the year 2008, even though they will keep outsourcing in countries that are -- that have lower standard of living and lower wage rates than work we have here, there will be in excess of 534,000 jobs created only in the Silicon Valley and other industries surrounding that place. So to me it sounds like a positive aspect of outsourcing. So even though we can -- we have an idea that jobs are destroyed because of the economy, outsourcing and just because we don't use some things anymore that we used to, but more jobs are created than we know. So why is it that people with disabilities, women and minorities, and when I say minority, I don't only mean the five races that the U.S. Bureau of Census has in mind. I also mean people of any race, Caucasian, African American, Hispanic, Asian American, American Indian and Pacific Islander who live in geographically remote locations, who speak English as a second language, like I do, and also who have a culture -- who have a documented cultural dissimilarity or cultural difference with the American mainstream. They are all people -- and also immigrants. I categorize them all as minority and this institute looks at them all irrespective of their race and gender. So why is it that those type of people with disabilities are not getting into the labor force or even if they are getting into the labor force they are not staying in longer? They are not earning as much? Okay, our newspapers -- the morning newspapers are written at what grade level? Between fourth and sixth grade level. And from that, why is it that they are written at fourth and sixth grade level? Because a large proportion of our population's reading level is bad. And since a large portion of American population's reading level is between fourth and sixth grade, that would also include minorities, all of those people I mentioned before and also people with disabilities. So since as many as 25 to 40 percent of workforce lack basic skills to understand writing and verbal communication, it is little wonder they have problems adapting to changes in the workplace and this is only complicated by the presence of a disability. I have a little dated data here. I apologize for that because I did not have a chance to communicate with RSA to get newer ones. Here is a breakdown of (inaudible) data and a comparison between years 2000 and 2001. That means those of how are listening who are not from VR, that means vocational rehabilitation client who has been successfully employed for 90 days or more. And here the proportion actually reflects the respective races -- participation in the total population of the U.S. But at the same time we have to keep in mind that the prevalence of disability and the effect of disability are more pervasive in minorities than among people who are mainstreamed. So this ratio, even though it reflects the population representation of all these races, in case of African Americans, American Indians, Asian Americans and Pacific Islander (inaudible) this should have been a little higher? Now, status 30 means they are eligible for services. Their plan for rehabilitation services has been approved but services under that plan have not been initiated. So this pretty much received almost no service at all from the state vocational rehabilitation and here are the percentages. And the percentages are a little higher than what we saw for minorities in status 26. The next one, slide No. 23, does the same thing for status 28. That means people with disabilities who are eligible to receive VR services, whose plan for VR is called IPE, individualized plan for employment, has been approved and some of the services under the plan have been provided. So here also we do see a breakdown of races and the participation of these -- of minorities in successfully closed VR case load is a little higher than their representation in the population. Status No. 24, Dr. Kundu is going to start from here. If you have any questions, we'll take a pause and take your questions if you do have any. >> LAUREL: I just want to remind our listeners that if you have questions, you just click on -- either send it by E-mail clicking on the RealPlayer button that says send questions here and the same for Media Player. Dawn, have we received any questions? >> MARJ: Laurel this is Marj. Dawn had to step out. No, there are no questions at this time. >> LAUREL: Thanks. >> MADAN: So I will proceed with the second part of the presentation. I think Dr. Dutta did an excellent job depicting the employment/unemployment issues in gender populations and people with disabilities and culturally diverse backgrounds. I think it is important because as the demography (inaudible). We should be cognizant of all these variations in population comparings and its impact in all spheres of our life, in education, employment, quality of services of culturally diverse backgrounds. Now, we are turning this presentation in a different direction. What is the impact of a service or services received by people with disabilities that has a relationship with the employment outcome and quality of life. So we'll discuss about the state VR agency and American Indian vocational rehabilitation program. I'm on slide No. 24. There are about 79 state agencies that provide services to people with disabilities, a combination of (inaudible) and blind. Some states have one agency called general and some has a separately blind agency and other states have a combination of general and blind. So 2003 survey of (inaudible). The so in that it says 50 percent are eligible to receive CRC, that is minimum qualification accepted in the system as qualified to serve people with disabilities, a masters degree or a certified rehabilitation counselor designation. And then (inaudible) -- if someone has a masters degree other than rehabilitation counselor, they can receive CRC, but they have to take some courses that relate to quality of services, like medical, social aspects, case management, I think about 12 to 18 hours of course work they have to complete. Then they are eligible to sit for CRC qualification. Now, it also has planned funds for VR counselor training from zero dollars to $36,000. So each agency gets some money for in-service training. Some agencies don't have any money and others are in this range. Similarly, in 2003, Consortium of Native American Rehabilitation, CANAR, there are 67 projects and this is their qualification. 30 persons with high school diploma, 21 percent with associate degree, 26 percent with bachelor's degree and 20 percent master's degree and 3 percent other. And (inaudible). The nearest school is on average 58 miles a way. So for an American Indian that live in reservations and there are 34 Native American schools or tribal colleges, but they are quite far away from where they live. So access to education is a difficult situation for them. So although the number of American Indians programs is increasing, there is a need for qualified professionals to serve those people. And of course 74 percent has staff development programs for their employees. That's a good sign. Now, I'm turning to a study that we have done in collaboration with RRTC (inaudible) in two different times, one is 1997 and then again in 2002 with the support of the rehabilitation (inaudible). So you wanted to see what is the comparison between this group from 1997 to 2002 in terms of professional preparation and participation of culturally diverse personnel including everybody, Caucasian, African American, and other races. So I'm on slide 25, state and VR (inaudible) and then with three major groups, state office director, administrators and supervisors. We choose only three positions in the state office because these are the individuals who implement the policies and regulations of the federal government and the state regulations and local regulations in providing quality services to people with disabilities. And then the district office staff all called regional office, but that is where the actual services are provided. So there administrators, supervisors ands and counselors. The counselors actually provide day to day services to consumers with disabilities. Many state agencies have their own training facilities. And evaluation facilities. So on this list, supervisors, job placement specialists and training personnel. What is their compositions? So in 1997 study, we had a sample of 8,554, and then that was 56 agencies out of 79 and then in the 2002 study, we had a sample of 7,862 and 38 agencies participated in that study. So now I'm going to give you the picture of the composition of the different groups. The first one is by position, state office staff. Of course we mentioned about director, administrator and supervisor. Can you see this collar graph that out of the 56 state directors, 46 were Caucasian American, 7 are African American, fewer are Asian or Pacific Islander. You can see the difference, 379 Caucasian American, 34 African American, 3 Hispanic American, 10 Asian or Pacific Islander and one other. In the supervisors, 416 Caucasian Americans, 33 African Americans, 15 Hispanic American and 15 Asian/Pacific Islander. What Dr. Dutta discussed earlier, the composition of the populations in the country and people with disabilities is definitely present in these positions. Can you see that out of these bar graphs. Now I go to the 2002 -- sit a most similar pattern or even a little more alarming. Can you see the director position out of 33, only four are each of the ethnic group, one African American, one Hispanic American and one Pacific Islander and so that doesn't represent the ethnic compositions of the country. And again, administrative, you get the same differences. Out of 156 Caucasian Americans, 29 African American, 17 Hispanic American, 5 Asian American, two Pacific Islanders and four other. And supervisors -- 291 Caucasian American and 21 African American, (inaudible) Hispanic American, six Asian, one Pacific Islander and three other. So that encompasses 1997 to 2002. Now let's look -- I'm on slide No. 28. So in 1997 that out of 100 percent, 31 percent was from rehabilitation education background and 33 percent was from human service backgrounds and 36 were other. So it's talking about here almost 69 percent from other field of education and only 31 percent was from rehabilitation education. But there is nothing wrong, rehabilitation is a unique field. People come from various backgrounds to serve people with disabilities. That's a good thing to do, so one point is that the rehabilitation counselor educational program was established after the 1954 act amendment. Now we're talking almost 50 years, but while we haven't tracted people of background in rehabilitation, there is something to the structure I'm coming to later on. Now, it is almost like similar that rehabilitation background is 31 percent and Allied health 32.3 percent and other 36.6 percent. So when the compositions of the academic background are most similar after five years. Now, let's talk about the district office staff. In 1997 there is a lot of numbers out and I won't read so you can see the numbers. The administrators, 289 from Caucasian American, 24 African American, 13 Hispanic American, 3 Asian/Pacific Islander. Supervisors, 685 Caucasian Americans, African American 113, Hispanic American 33, Asian/Pacific Islander, (inaudible). VR counselor, they are the professionals who provide services to the consumers, they are always in touch with the consumers. They are the backbone of the agency. 4,121 Caucasian American, 716 African American, 262 Hispanic American, 88 Asian/Pacific Islander, 27 not identified and 12 others. So you can see all throughout the presentation that there is a disproportion in terms of representation of ethnic groups in several positions. Okay, this is district office staff 2002. On the same pattern -- so I'm not going to read any more of the numbers, but you can see what it is here. Now let's talk about the educational attainment of the district office staff. In 1997 the rehabilitation background is 39 percent. It is a little better than the state office because the counselors in the district offices or the regional offices are expected to have more education. We have more representation in the human services field and other were less compared to the state officials. And in 2002, we have 36.5 percent for rehab background, Al hide health (inaudible) and other 22.4 percent. So the rehab could background in 2002 is a little less than what it was before. The training facility staff -- in 1997, administration and supervisors and job placement specialists and training personnel -- you can see almost a similar pattern. In fact, we have less represent ration of Hispanic American and Asian/Pacific Islander and Native American in positions here. And in 2002, the same pattern. Now, let's talk about the educational attainment -- no, I see that we have some more here in 2002 from Hispanic background. There is a little exception here. And educational attainment in 1997 is 27 percent from rehab backgrounds, 43 for human services and 30 from other. Of course in the training facilities you can expect less rehab background than the district offices. And then of course in 2002 it is 25 percent from rehab background which is less than the previous five years. Allied health, 32.8 and then other is 42.2 percent. Now, let's compare the salaries of these positions. We'll go by state office, district office and training personnel. In 1997, in general, about 43 percent of the state federal personnel are below the median, median salary. Now, state office staff, 37 percent earned below the median. Director, 36 percent earned below 60,000. Administrators, 48 percent below 50,000; and supervisors, 28 percent below 35,000. And of course it varies between the location of the state office personnel. In our big cities, that's where the salary structure varies. Similarly the district office staff is 45 percent below the median. Administrators, 48 percent earned below 45,000, supervisors, 42 percent earned below 40,000, and rehab counselor, 46 percent earned below 30,000. That was in 1997. We are be of course talking about ten years before. In training facilities, in general, 33 percent earned below median. Supervisors, 40 percent earned below 35,000, job placement specialists, 28 percent earned below 25,000. Job placement specialists are the persons have a hard job of placing people with disabilities. Similarly, rehab counselors showed their salary should be higher, but it is lower and the district office staff and also the training personnel is similar to the job placement specialist. So that's what you need to pay attention more. Now, let's talk about the 2002 data. Here, it says in general about 33 percent of the state/federal person earned below median. State office staff, 42 percent earned below median. Now, the salaries are higher because it's five years later and inflation and all kinds of cost of living adjustments. So the state director 34 percent earned below 80,000. Administrators 46 percent earned below 55,000. District office staff, 48 percent earned below median; administrators, 43 percent earned below 55,000, supervisors, below 50,000, rehab counselor earned below 35,000. So if you compare rehab counselor in 1997 to 2002 increased $5,000. And then again training facility staff, supervisor earned below 50,000, which is higher -- so a 15,000 increase, and a job placement specialist earned 45,000, which is 20,000 higher, and then training facilities personnel, 30,000, or 5,000 higher than the previous one. But still think about did rehab counselor or the job placement specialist was higher, the rehab -- (inaudible). When we published the 1997 date a we had a conference with the I. S. A. staff and as a result, these data were utilized by many agencies to increase their salary structure of the rehab counselors. So that was a good sign. And of course I know the administrators are still trying to improve the salary structure for rehab counselors and other personnel. Now, let's get a total picture of 1997 study with a sample of 8,554. Out of the 8,554 you have -- and I'm on slide No. 40 -- 2,281 without disability and only 805 male with disabilities. And if you look at the next one, female, 3,805 without disability and female, 663 with disability. So you can see the disproportion in the whole picture in terms of people with disabilities in this presentation, this agency is part disability but the represent ration is not there. Also think about the female -- there are more numbers in the population. (inaudible). So being a female is a barrier in jobs and glass ceilings, female (inaudible), another barrier, almost a double barrier. A fee fail of culturally diverse background and having a disability is a triple barrier. So that's why you see the representation of females with disabilities (inaudible). Now we go to the next graph of 2002. If you look at the 2002 data, this is slide No. 41, it is almost the same pattern. Men without disabilities, 2,475. Men with disabilities, 624; females without disability, 4,152 and with disabilities, 611. So the gap between male and female with disabilities is a little closer, better than the 1997, but still is quite far. Now let's talk about the certification and licensure because there are two indicators of qualified persons in the state/federal system either having masters degree in rehabilitation counseling and certified rehab counselor. So here in 1997 you can see it is only 10 percent, (inaudible). Now, let's compare to 2002. It is less -- a little less. 9.97 percent for C. S. C, (inaudible). So what is happening? Why we don't have people with rehabilitation backgrounds and certified rehab counselors in the system? I'm coming to the recommendations. We'll discuss these issues. I'm on slide No. 44. Now here are some recommendations, how we can -- what is the pre and in-service training to state some of the skills in clinical and direct service office provision skills, administrative skills, organizational skills and knowledge in nondisability-related areas such as human resource development. The rehab counselor or professional is dramatically changing. They have to know more areas. They have to be more resource full to harness the resources of the community. And that's why they have to be versatile in order to provide quality services to consumers with disabilities. The one recommendation that VR -- that is our recommendation that the status 26 closures should be discontinued. Why? Because 26 closure is one of the criteria called successful closure; but the question is as it changes in the rehab regulation after 1973 act and 1992 amendments, the rehab counselor is supposed to provide services to persons with severe disabilities like spinal cord injury, traumatic brain injury and other complicated conditions. That takes longer. So that when system doesn't take into account of the counselors -- all the hard work they do by one 26 closure. I term it as a catch-26. so this is some sort of number game. So that means often the counselors are really against -- some catch-26 and close (inaudible). So they try to close easy cases and not pay attention much to the severe cases, but they are doing it. So that is a problem. Rather they should be using weighted case closure based on how much effort is placed on one client with severe disabilities. That should be counted -- that should be a proper quality outcome for the rehab counselors, the weighted case closure. And also rehab counseling should be a career path with comparable remuneration. The private agencies and veterans administration, they pay almost five to fifteen thousand higher salary than the state bureau agencies paid. So that's why most of the qualified people aren't there. Most of the qualified rehab counselors aren't there. I know that state agencies have more benefits, job security and other perks, that other agencies do not pay. So, yeah, you have to compare one or the other. But initial reaction that the outside resources pay better, and a lot of people with degrees in rehabilitation education opt for other than state agencies. We need to change this trend so we can have qualified personnel. That's the recommendation on Page 45, the state agencies increase salary, reduce case load, improve working conditions for rehab counselors because they are the backbone of the agency. So we need to look into their functioning levels, how we can make them more productive and effective so they can provide quality services to consumers with disabilities and then state agencies and community programs offer paid internships. Students in the rehab counseling program come from economic conditions so they need money. So if the state agencies provide paid internships so they have a captured population, they are trained in the system, and they tend to stay at it. So many state agencies do that. I know Texas, Oklahoma and Georgia, New York and other state agencies -- I cannot remember all the state. They pay and they try to keep their intern students. Now I also mention in the last one, establish national online job bank and talent bank. Half the people do not know where to look for a job, so the national clearinghouse of rehabilitation (inaudible) at Utah University, they have some systems that people did look into their website to link up with the job bank and talent bank. Okay, the next one is on slide No. 46. It says that the recommendation for RSA, is to provide long term training programs in two-year colleges because the two-year colleges or community colleges, that is where most of the people with disabilities and culturally diverse background attend classes. And that is where we need to establish rehab education programs and that is how you're going to improve the professional preparation of people with disabilities in culturally diverse backgrounds. And RSA is making some (inaudible). At this time we have one such program in tie pan in the rehabilitation in sigh pan. And we want to do that more for the community colleges in the mainland and tribal colleges, there are 34 tribal colleges. So you are pursuing part of the rehab building activities. (inaudible). Double up new programs or existing rehab counselor programs in black universities and (inaudible). Also the rehab counselor program in the country should infuse the concept of multiculturalism access curriculum and we need to study section (inaudible). What is the compositions and how we can assist them to improve their professional background and also one of the research items here is (inaudible). So that's what's going on in this direction but we need to do a little more. Okay, now, collective vision for the future -- that is 47 -- the number of functions performed by counselors can be (inaudible). The changing labor market, the changing our function of the rehab counselor so this is what you have to think about. (inaudible) how we can manage our resources, human resources. And the next one is counselor should be prepared to expand their role in the world of work. I mean, there is a resurgence -- the amount of time counselors or job placement specialists spend outside of their office in the labor market, they do a better job placement than time spent at the office. The rehab counselor is in a catch 22 situation because they have do a lot of paperwork to be accountable, but at the same time they have to do the job placement, too. The (inaudible). Secure and maintain involvement as a primary facility rehab service for people with disabilities. The rehab counselor job is a Jack of all trades and they have to serve many, many situations. They have to wear lots of hats. And then core and CRC C. issues take an active role in redefining and expanding the professional educational standards in rehab counseling. That is true because the labor market is changing, the economy is changing, we are having different kinds of populations, people with severe disabilities so the curriculum and national certification should reflect that. And I'll end with a quotation of Samuel Butler, who is an educator. There are a number of people adapt to the world around them, (inaudible). Therefore progress is made by unreasonable people. You can take any interpretation you like. That's the presentation and we'll open for discussion. Thank you. >> LAUREL: Madan, thank you. I'd like to step in for a minute. We're so near the closing of our time, Madan, if it's acceptable to you and Alo, with what I'd like to do is collect all the questions that we have received and then send them to you all and then post your responses on our website. The time is so short. I would hate to cut any out or cut anybody short. Would that be acceptable? >> MADAN: That's fine. Thank you. >> LAUREL: I want to thank you for just a pretty sobering presentation. Some of these statistics were just amazing, both in terms of the one's Alo presented and the one's of yours. And it raises a lot of questions in my mind and some follow up points and if possible we'd like to do a follow-up with this or a similar subject. It's just extremely useful information and as I say a bit sobering to the future of voc rehab and professionals. So thank you very much. I want to say very, very quickly, today's presentation took almost our whole 90 minutes and it was just first rate. We'd like for you to give us your -- give us your comments and recommendations and suggestions by using the evaluation link there on the web page. We'd like your comments very, very much and not just on the presentation itself, but also on the webcast delivery and the issues which we may need to address, navigation, ease of use and anything you can think of for ways to improve the process, we would welcome. Also I'd like to bring your attention to related webcasts that we've done in the past. We've listed a few on the web page. They are excellent and encourage you to click on those. The audio is there. The handouts, if there are any, is there and the transcript. Also we have upcoming on the 22nd we have a related webcast. It's inclusion of minorities in traumatic brain injury rehabilitation and outcomes research. And it's going to cover special issues and these are by our good colleagues at our parent organization which is TIRR, a part of Memorial Hermann also on the 23rd, Madan and Alo, our colleagues on the Rehabilitation Research Institute for Underrepresented Populations will present that's Chrisann Schiro-Geist and Emer Broadbent will present on issues related to underrepresented populations. And one other thing, ILRU and its IL NET program has developed an online three week course on cultural competence. It's targeted to people working in centers for independent living and statewide IL councils. Our first one is being offered in September. It's filled, but we'll be offering it again in the. And advise you to perhaps keep checking your E-mail or the online list, and if you're interested, you may contact Dawn Heinsohn at Heinsohn@ilru.org. If you'd like to have more information on that. So very quickly, this is Laurel Richards and on behalf of Rob Dickehuth, who is with the Center of Collaborative and Interactive Technologies at the Baylor College of Medicine and Marie Bryant our exceptional realtime captioner and Marj Gordon, Sharon Finney, Marissa Demaya, Maria del Bosque, Tanjauna Arnold and Dawn Heinsohn, thank you for joining us. Thanks to Alo and Madan and we'll see you next time hopefully on the 22nd and 23rd. Good morning.