Located in:
- Program-Specific Requirements for Vocational Rehabilitation (Combined or General)
The Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) Services Portion of the Unified or Combined State Plan [13] must include the following descriptions and estimates, as required by section 101(a) of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended by title IV of WIOA:
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[13] Sec. 102(b)(2)(D)(iii) of WIOA
j. 2. Identify the need to establish, develop, or improve community rehabilitation programs within the State; and
Current Narrative:
Section D of the General Group survey to professionals from the VRA was developed with the main purpose of finding out the VRA’s surveyed opinions regarding the need to establish, develop or improve community rehabilitation programs. The section consisted of four (4) concrete questions aimed at differently related aspects of Community Rehabilitation Programs (CRP) that are or could be under contract by the VRA.
Based on their professional experience in the VRA and the vocational rehabilitation services needs of the VRA consumers, respondents answered the following to the first question:
- Do you believe that there are enough CRPs on the Island able to satisfy VRA consumers needs?
ANSWER: The majority of the participants (68%) answered NO, that there are not enough CRPs in Puerto Rico. The detailed answers given by the participants may be distributed as follows:
Yes - 29 (18%)
No - 109 (68%)
No answer - 22 (14%)
The opinion of the majority of VRA participants is that there are not enough CRPs to keep up with the supported employment services demand. According to the surveyed professionals, the limitation of CRPs negatively affects goal and indicator achievement possibilities, because the consumers have to wait for long periods of time before receiving services. The mostly affected areas seem to be the rural-mountainous regions. Regarding the services offered by the PRCs, there seemed to be a consensus to demand more specialized trained staff of the CRPs and improve the control of the VRA on the service processes that the CRPs perform. Several participants pointed out that the main challenge is not the CRPs limitations, but the lack of competitive employment on the Island. Hand-in-hand with this observation, the need for the employers to be more sensitive toward people with disabilities rights, as well as the recognition of their potential being a must.