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COPYRIGHT 2005 Pro-Ed
Supported employment for people with disabilities has been a national policy since the late 1980s. Because its implementation usually requires the resources of at least 2funding and service state agencies, written interagency agreements have been a formal strategy for policy implementation. This qualitative study analyzes interagency agreements for supported employment and the resulting collaborations of 6 states to identify the crucial characteristics that reinforce their utility and value. Commonalities and differences indicated three broad categories: outcomes, characteristics of the written agreements, and characteristics of the midlevel staff. Specific elements are discussed to improve creation and implementation of interagency agreements to expand supported employment for people with disabilities.
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Federal interest in collaboration for supported employment first appeared in the Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1986 (P.L. 99-506), which legislated supported employment as a service option with a specific emphasis on integrated settings (see Note 1), competitive wages, and the provision of ongoing supports so that individuals with severe disabilities were maintained in integrated employment. The Amendments acknowledged that this new option, intended as a systems change, could not be accomplished without the collaboration of other agencies. Title VI, Part C (Supported Employment Services for Individuals with Severe Handicaps), of this amendment authorized grants to "assist States in developing collaborative programs with appropriate public agencies and private nonprofit organizations for training and short-term post employment services leading to employment for severely handicapped individuals," but the problem of long-term supports was not addressed. With vocational rehabilitation's time-limited funding responsibility for supported employment, long-term supported employment required funding and service commitments from other state agencies or funders (e.g., state MR/DD administrations, state mental health administrations). Noted by Conley, Noble, and Elder (1986) as "one of the most glaring examples" (p. 81) of a service gap, this problem continued to be a barrier to supported employment for people with severe disabilities in the absence of a federal directive to ensure long-term or extended supports.
The purpose of the present research was to qualitatively examine the development and implementation of six interagency agreements for supported employment to better under stand the context for their development and the elements that contribute to an effective implementation that results in increased numbers of people being supported in employment.
Interagency Agreements and Collaboration
Service gaps, and other service problems, such as duplication of services, cost ineffectiveness, and inaccessibility of services, can be resolved through coordination between human service agencies and funders. Planned coordination has been referred to variously as service integration, interagency coordination, and collaboration (Delgado & Humm-Delgado, 1980; Martinson, 1999); there do not appear to be significant differences among these terms. The intent of these processes is the same: to achieve a goal that cannot be achieved by a single agency, usually due to mission parameters or limited resources. Collaboration can be judged as effective if it results in the desired objectives. An interagency agreement may also produce unintentional positive outcomes, thus adding to its value.
A written interagency agreement that outlines planned coordination is one step toward collaboration. In some instances it is used to formalize an operative informal collaboration. To achieve goals, strategies have included legislative and regulatory requirements for interagency agreements or interagency collaboration. To be effective, interagency agreements should identify the specific population to be served, the resources to be committed, the assignment of roles and responsibilities, and reporting requirements (e.g., Elder, 1980; Mattessich & Monsey, 1992). Resource commitment from top administrators may be the most crucial element of an interagency agreement (Gray 1985; Mazzella, 2000), as it provides the material for joint efforts. Gray (1985) described working relationships as a "recognized interdependence" (p. 920), which she identified as the crux of a collaboration. She also claimed that collaborative problem solving is pointless without that sense of interdependence. Furthermore, the recognized interdependence assumes that resources will be combined.
In the collaboration, communication, which includes education about partner agencies, common terminology, frequency, and accessibility, has been identified as a major element that contributes to the system consistency that is essential in service provision for people with disabilities (Hart, Zimbrich, & Ghiloni, 2001). Finally, "the critical test is what outcomes are achieved ..." (Morrison, 1996, p. 130), which answers the question, "Is this an effective interagency agreement?"
Both interagency agreements and interagency collaborations enhance systems change because they concentrate resources, such as funding and personnel, and intent (Foley, Butterworth, & Heller, 2000). Hill and Lynn (2003) characterized collaboration as "voluntary participation in interorganizational (horizontal) relationships that involve agreements or understandings concerning allocation of responsibilities and rewards among the collaborators" (p. 65). Interagency agreements may initiate collaboration or formalize a previously informal collaboration. Sometimes they are used to outline the formal terms for implementing other tools, such as joint funding streams or special initiatives. Here we will use the term interagency agreement to refer to the formal document that outlines interagency agreements between two or more state agencies (i.e., "partners"; Foley et al., 2000), and collaboration in reference to the informal or formal activities that evince the joint efforts.
Interagency Collaboration and Supported Employment
Federal regulations broadly pertaining to various services for people with disabilities have included language that "promotes interagency cooperation" (LaCour, 1982, p. 265). Subsequent amendments (the Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1986 and 1991) to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 have contained language that supports interagency collaboration and cooperative agreements, primarily toward the acquisition of extended funding; however, such efforts were not compulsory. The U.S. Department of Education, Code of Federal Regulations, 34 CFR363.11e(2), requires that the state plan for vocational rehabilitation (VR) services "demonstrate evidence of ... efforts ... to identify and make arrangements, including entering into cooperative agreements, with ... other public or nonprofit agencies or organizations ... with respect to the provision of extended services." In the 1992 Rehabilitation Act Amendments, language was strengthened regarding interagency agreements and transitioning students (Whitney-Thomas, Cuilla Timmons, Thomas, Gilmore, & Fesko, 1997). The requirement in this Act that "extended services must be immediately available to prevent any interruption in the provision of ongoing support needed to maintain employment" (Revell, 1992, p. 33) was clearly intended to address previously noted service gaps, and it placed the responsibility for arranging extended services funding on VR.
Notably, the Workforce Investment Act (WIA; P.L. 105-220) of 1998 subsumed the Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1998 as one of five titles, establishing the expectation that people with disabilities would be employed in integrated settings. Furthermore, WIA stated that "linkages between the vocational rehabilitation programs and other components of the statewide workforce investment systems are critical to ensure effective and meaningful participation by individuals with disabilities in workforce investment activities" (Section 100(a)(1)(G)). State vocational rehabilitation agencies are among the mandated partners in this legislation and are required to "enter into a cooperative agreement with other entities that are components of the statewide workforce investment system" (Section 101 (a)(11)). Section 101(a)(8)(B) specifies
that the Governor will ensure that an interagency agreement or other mechanism for interagency coordination takes effect between a component of the state workforce investment system and the vocational rehabilitation agency regarding payment of vocational rehabilitation services provided to an individual with disabilities.
The steady increase in supported employment for people with disabilities, and the pressure on VR agencies to create linkages with other workforce investment agencies and programs, suggests that collaborations between VR and disability-specific agencies will also increase to pool resources toward a common goal. Knowing what is necessary to include in the written interagency agreement and the conditions for implementation that lead to increased numbers of people with disabilities in supported employment is important.
Method
Through a qualitative analysis, this research investigated six interagency agreements for supported employment to identify the conditions and qualities necessary for the outcome of increased numbers of people in supported employment.
The units of study were the interagency agreements. A qualitative analysis was used because it allows researchers to assemble abstractions from the particulars (Bogdan & Biklen, 1982) and to identify regularities (Tesch, cited in Creswell, 1994). A qualitative methodology is a useful approach in applied policy research (Ritchie & Spencer, 1994).
Research Questions
This qualitative study analyzed six state-level interagency agreements that had been nominated as exemplary (i.e., potentially good) to broadly identify the important elements of interagency agreements. The specific research questions were as follows:
1. What is necessary for the development of a potentially good interagency agreement for supported employment?
2. What is necessary for the implementation of a potentially good interagency agreement?
3. What are the positive outcomes of the interagency agreements for supported employment?
Sample
In response to an e-mailed request, members of the Supported Employment Consortium (see Note 2) nominated interagency agreements as part of the...
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