This system is not only a waste of tax-payers' dollars, but it fails miserably at helping people with severe mental illnesses get back to work. Further, vocational rehabilitation agencies are unable to estimate how many people will be served in a given year and at what cost. Methods to support this population are grossly outmoded. Services are time limited so that once people obtain employment, the system provides no additional support. This approach is entirely contrary to the realities of severe mental illnesses, which are known to be brain disorders that are episodic in nature and fluctuate in severity and impact over time.
Incentives reward employment counselors on the easiest placements.
Despite successive federal and regulatory attempts to focus the system on people with the most severe disabilities, state vocational rehabilitation agencies have done little to establish incentives for serving individuals with more complicated long-term needs. More than 85 percent of individuals with serious brain disorders in this country are unemployed. NAMI's report lays out several alternative approaches for helping many of these people obtain and maintain employment. We're recommending a major overhaul, not a band-aid fix. Based in Arlington, Virginia, NAMI's membership includes more than 140,000 people with brain disorders and their families, and 1,100 state and local affiliates in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Canada.