Achieving community membership through community rehabilitation provider services: are we there yet?
Seventeen years of surveys show most adults with developmental disabilities still end up in facility workshops, but provider coaching can flip the ratio to real jobs.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Fyfe et al. (2007) mailed a national survey to every community rehabilitation provider in the United States. They asked what kinds of day services each agency offered to adults with developmental disabilities.
The team wanted to know how close we were to full community membership through real jobs.
What they found
Most adults still spent their days in facility workshops or nonwork day programs. Only a small slice received supported employment in regular community jobs.
The authors concluded we were 'not there yet' on true inclusion.
How this fits with other research
Sulewski et al. (2008) ran the same survey one year later and confirmed the pattern. They also showed that the new 'community-based nonwork' category was growing fast but had no quality rules.
Kramer et al. (2020) and Butterworth et al. (2024) updated the numbers: even by 2015-16, fewer than one in five adults with IDD who got state services held an integrated job. The gap S et al. flagged still looms two decades later.
Lyons et al. (2022) offers a fix. Their pilot gave agencies hands-on help to drop sheltered work and pitch real jobs. The shift worked, proving the bottleneck is system habits, not client ability.
Why it matters
If you write transition plans or talk with adult-service agencies, ask to see their employment-rate data. When they offer only facility programs, share Oliver et al.'s roadmap: active job development, employer outreach, and person-centered plans. Push for an 'employment first' policy so a community job is tried before any nonwork day program is approved.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Findings from an analysis of the characteristics and services of community rehabilitation providers (CRPs) in the early years of the 21st century are presented. Services provided by CRPs can be categorized along two dimensions: purpose (work, nonwork) and setting (facility-based, community). The number of individuals with disabilities present provides a third perspective for analysis. The majority of CRPs provided both work and nonwork services, and the majority of those that provide employment services offered both integrated and facility-based employment. Individuals with developmental disabilities were most likely to be supported in facility-based work (41%), followed by nonwork services (33%), and integrated employment (26%). Despite some changes in CRP characteristics, the goal of community membership has not yet been widely achieved.
Intellectual and developmental disabilities, 2007 · doi:10.1352/1934-9556(2007)45[149:ACMTCR]2.0.CO;2