Citation
Zivolich, S., Shueman, S.A., & Weiner, J.S. (1997). An exploratory cost-benefit analysis of natural support strategies in the employment of people with severe disabilities. Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation, 8, 211–221.
Highlights
- Natural support programs use existing job-site routines, people, and methods, rather than job coaches, to assist workers with severe disabilities. This exploratory cost-benefit analysis used data from the first 59 of 110 people employed through a grant program using natural supports to estimate costs and benefits to participants, taxpayers, and society.
- Benefits were estimated from relevant combinations of earnings, taxes, Supplemental Security Income benefits (transfers) and administrative costs, and savings from a most likely alternative program, rather than from impact estimates derived from experimental evaluation.
- Under this approach, results suggested substantive benefits to participants, taxpayers, and society for a natural support approach, and the superiority of this approach over the traditional sheltered workshop (job coaching) model.
Reviewed by CLEAR
December 2014