Analysis of the Types of Natural Supports Utilized during Job Placement and Development

Abstract

In order to achieve successful community employment for workers with severe disabilities, supports independent of agency personnel (i.e., supports found naturally or typically in the workplace) must be implemented (Callahan, 1992; Fabian & Luecking, 1991; Nisbet & Hagner, 1988). Many individuals with severe disabilities may need training and follow-along services for extended periods of time, possibly for the duration of employment. Consequently, in order to transfer all or part of the responsibility for support from professional service providers, it is important to implement natural supports to provide consistent ongoing training and follow-along services. The role of the supported employment specialist is to match an individual to a meaningful job in the community by assessing his/her characteristics and needs in relation to job requisites and determining the individual's strengths, skills, abilities, support needs, and preferences (Trach, 1990). When the support needs of an individual with significant disabilities are addressed as part of the work site, reliance on a job coach should be diminished or eliminated. Support models, such as natural supports, from a close examination of natural work settings are likely to avoid many of the difficulties that constrain with the job coach (Nisbet & Hagner, 1988, p. 261). Supported employment efforts should begin with an examination of the social interactions and supports that are commonplace in natural work environments, and then should build upon and augment these natural processes and interactions within the work site (Hanley-Maxwell & Millington, 1992; Rogan, Hagner, & Murphy, 1993). Early employment models, which later served as the conceptual framework for supported employment, presented a technology for employing persons in community jobs focused on strategies (Trach, 1990). From the beginning of services identified as supported employment, the field has developed the notion of job coach in conjunction with or in parallel to, the provision of service. The name has undergone some changes (e.g., employment training specialist) while becoming nearly synonymous with the services provided (i.e., supported employment). This study investigates those services from a categorical perspective of those types of supports that most often substitute the action for the person. In other words, job coaches need not deliver all services; in fact, in most cases the job coach is not the appropriate source of support. The basic premise of this research is that if a job coach provides all the services, then for an employee to be independent, 100% of the support must be faded or transferred. This investigation describes a group of placements that utilized a categorical approach to the provision of support that focused on the delivery of service by any means other than a traditional job coach approach as described by Wehman, Sale, & Parent (1992). SPANS A Competency-Based Training Program to Promote, Implement, and Evaluate a Systematic Plan for Achieving Natural Supports (SPANS) targets resources and individuals to assist with planning employment, determining support needs, and implementing natural supports for individuals with disabilities (Trach & Shelden, 1993). The training program promotes a systematic process for determining and implementing natural supports for these individuals, targeting a higher level of integration, acceptance, and satisfaction for them. The SPANS model contains an operational definition of natural supports with six components: consumer-driven planning, ecological assessment of individual needs, environmental assessment of natural supports, identification of natural supports in multiple environments, matching natural supports to individual needs, and development of individual natural supports plans. The SPANS Training Project enhances the capacity of the participants to develop, implement, and evaluate effective, systematic models of natural supports. …

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