Backgrounder
Public Vocational
Rehabilitation Program
Since its creation in 1920, the Public
Vocational Rehabilitation Program has grown in concert with an
ever-changing society and evolving state and Federal laws
relating to persons with disabilities and the workplace. The VR
program provides for a national team of vocational
rehabilitation specialists who offer job counseling, guidance,
job placement, and purchase services and support which help
people with disabilities go to work.
During its 82-year history, despite inadequate funding, the VR program has helped approximately 14 million people with disabilities acquire gainful employment. Approximately 1.2 million persons with disabilities are served annually, 233,000 of which are aided in entering or returning to employment. Throughout its long and storied existence, the VR program has demonstrated the ability to keep pace with increasing demands to provide effective services for people with disabilities.
Program History
Since its infancy, the Public Vocational
Rehabilitation Program has enjoyed bipartisan Congressional
support and has been continually reauthorized because of its
record as a strong, cost-effective service delivery program that
produces documented results.
The VR Program was established with a small budget and was limited in scope to providing counseling, training, prostheses, and placement services to individuals with physical disabilities. With $3.1 billion funding in FY 2002, including $2.45 billion in Federal funding and $680 million in matching funds from states across the country, the VR Program is still only able to provide its complete array of services to one-third of the 3.3 million working-aged Americans with disabilities.
The Program has a lengthy history of positive and creative change. In 1943, its focus was expanded to include physical restoration services and was extended to persons with cognitive impairments, including individuals with mental illnesses. The Program was once again augmented in 1954 by the inclusion of private community-based rehabilitation programs and authorization for necessary program supports such as rehabilitation research and demonstration activities, training of rehabilitation professionals, and the establishment and improvement of community rehabilitation programs.
Further evolvement of the VR Program took place during 1965 when individuals disabled through a lack of education and social skills were included under the scope of the Program. Major changes within the program took place with the passage of the Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1973. That Legislation chartered a new course for the VR Program by giving priority for services to individuals with severe disabilities.
A recent program alteration occurred in 1992 with major amendments to enhance the role of persons with disabilities in directing their own rehabilitation programs. This formed the basis on which individuals with disabilities were to be full partners with rehabilitation professionals. The 1992 program changes also mandated that all individuals would be presumed to benefit from VR services in terms of employment unless it could be demonstrated through clear and convincing evidence existed to rebut this presumption.
The reauthorization of the Rehabilitation Act, as Title IV of
the Workforce Investment Act of 1998, advanced the Program once
again. Linking a strong, autonomous Public Vocational
Rehabilitation Program with the collaborative workforce
investment system serving all displaced and unemployed workers,
recognizes the potential of individuals with disabilities to
meet the workforce needs of the Nation’s economy.
Throughout the many years of evolution, the VR Program has always maintained its overall goal of assisting persons with disabilities in entering or reentering the workforce by becoming employed at professionally and fiscally rewarding jobs.
