Voc Rehab TF Series I : Introduction
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In most welfare-advanced countries, employment of PwD is a key to welfare, since guaranteeing income through employment has a positive effect on improving the self-esteem and quality of life of PwD.
In Korea, in order to overcome the difficulties of hiring PwD, Promotion of Employment of Persons with Disabilities Act was enacted in 1990, followed by Korea Employment Agency for persons with disabilities was established. In the past 30 years, the agency has made quantitative progress to expand employment for PwD. However, in order to advance to the advancement of employment for PwD, it is necessary to diagnose the problems of the employment and prepare a plan for that. The main problems can be summarized as follows.
1. Complex employment support system for each department and lack of related definitions
· Since the amendment of the act in 2000, the perception that the employment of PwD is implied by the Ministry of Labor and the vocational rehab is the Ministry of Health and Welfare as well. Employment of PwD has a macroscopic meaning, and vocational rehab has a practical and clinical meaning. Therefore, it is necessary to prepare double tracks; one is vocational rehab as a framework for providing jobs to PwD and the other is policies for employment of PwD.
· Rearranging the similar projects carried out by the agency and Korea Disabled people’s Development Institute. For instance, the welfare workplaces project conducted by the agency and the employment supports for persons with severe disabilities that conducted by the institutes.
· In the case that the agency conducts support and employment projects through vocational rehab-related organizations in the community; two orgs are conducting two employment projects, and the target and project contents are very redundant, which is highly wasteful in terms of budget.
· In order to increase the efficiency of hiring PwD, close cooperation between the two ministries; the Ministry of Employment and Labor, and the Ministry of Health and Welfare, which are major related ministries, is required, but the two ministries are currently competing and overlapping the similar projects. In addition, the Ministry of Education, the Small and Medium Business Administration, and local governments provide employment related to PwD as well, so it might be an urgent problem to establish a system for information exchange, especially inter and intra relationship between institutions and agencies.
2. No stabilizing employment policy
· Over the past 30 years, quantitative performance of employment for PwD has increased. Unfortunately, there is a problem of a performance system that is recognized as an employment record even if only one day is worked.
· In order to advance employment of PwD, it is imperative that stabilizing employment policies for PwD, such as the level of wage increase, the status of internal promotion, and maintenance of employment should be prepared urgently. Employment anti-discrimination laws should be strengthened to reject discriminatory employment for PwD. Korea's related laws only recogonizes discrimination, but do not specify strong sanctions.
3. Lack of understanding of severe disabilities
· Due to the history of long-term disability grades, there is streotype of perception that PwD; high grade of disabilities are not always the severe disabilities i.e. especially in terms of developmental disabilities.
· It may be an appropriate interpretation in terms of welfare or medical care, but the concept of occupational severity is more appropriate when it comes to hiring PwD. This is because although one has severe physical or mental disabilities, the one may not have difficulties on carring out tasks. Therefore, when it comes to PwD, it is important that the type of disability is not an important concept, but the degree of functional limitation due to the disability is evaluated and probably linked to the appropriate job.
4. Lack of philosophy on employment of persons with severe disbilities.
· Despite the need to grasp general employment and support employment for the purpose of employment type suitable for persons with severe disbilities , it has not escaped the framework of protective employment. In the case of the agency, the measures to promote the general employment of persons with severe disabilities are incomplete, but support the standard workplace and subsidiary's workplaces et cetera are being expanded to the protective/separative employment.
· Considering that the need for protective employment for persons with developmental disabilities is still high among persons with severe disabilities, the agency should strengthen by linking with existing vocational rehab facilities. In case of PwD with excellent work ability in vocational rehab facilities would better to provide general employment incentives to promote the transition to general employment. In case of high-productivity vocational rehab facilities is to develop into a standard workplace or a social enterprise.
5. No paradigm shift for hiring people with disabilities: Provide consumer-oriented services through the introduction of a case management system
· The paradigm of welfare for PwD is rapidly changing from the rehabilitation paradigm to the self-reliance paradigm. The key to this paradigm shift is the change from a provider-oriented service system to a consumer-oriented service system.
· The core of the consumer-oriented service system is to provide personalized employment services. Currently, the agency has the most budget and manpower system, but has not provided employment services which based on individualized employment plans.
· In order to implement the individual employment plan, it is necessary to establish a case management system that can connect with relevant organizations in the community. The agency with budgets for the employment of PwD and national organizations will need to develop plans for the establishment of a cooperative case management employment system with relevant organizations in the community.
6. No professional counterplan of adults with developmental disabilities
· Due to the problem of lack of services for adults with developmental disabilities in the community, which have been continuously raising problems, many services are rapidly being prepared without sufficient worries and alternatives to linking services. It is urgent to develop alternatives such as colleges of developmental disabilities without specific alternatives to employment, lifelong education centers with no difference from day care facilities, day care centers that are not much different from vocational rehab facilities with poor working environment, et cetera.
· It is not possible to solve all the problems of adult developmental disabilities that have recently happened in the Developmental Disability Training Center of the agency. However, there is a need to play a role in preparing for adulthood by acting as a GATEWAY that can lead the transition to the community for persons with developmental disabilities during transition period through close cooperation with the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Health and Welfar, and also including the community special schools and special classes.
7. Problems of the vocational training system
· Employment rate and average income of PwD are lower than those of persons without disabilities. The reason for this phenomenon is that PwD are unable to enter the primary job market relative to persons withoiut disabilitis, and jobs for PwD are formed in the secondary labor market represented by low wages. In overseas countries, various educational and training opportunities are provided to improve the quality of employment for PwD. In the U.S., vocational training is diverse, and according to the employment plan of individual PwD, it supports college and postgraduate education if necessary.
· However, the problems of vocational training currently being provided in Korea are low level of vocational training, lack of review of the adequacy of the parties to the type of training, vocational training with little connection to employment, and lack of cooperation and communication with the employment agency and vocational training institutions. And other problems. Even in the case of the agency, if it had provided support for PwD with high learning ability to receive higher education at general universities since the establishment, it is expected that they would have played a role in various job sites with high quality of employment.