Taking part in the JVS workshop are, from left, Diahann DeRuggiero of Henry P. Becton Regional High School in East Rutherford; Evy Falcon-Duran, Randolph High School; and Leanne Hesse, The Children’s Institute in Verona. They are taking part in an exercise designed to provide insight into the importance of vocational evaluation for special-needs students.
Photos by Johanna Ginsberg
Sidebar
October 2, 2008
Special-needs students and their educational futures was the subject of a workshop for educators hosted by the Jewish Vocational Service of MetroWest, a beneficiary agency of UJC MetroWest.
The Sept. 24 workshop at JVS in East Orange focused on a crucial but often overlooked step in the life of a special-needs high school student: the vocational evaluation.
By adequately assessing a student’s skills, interests, and abilities, organizers said, schools can help craft an appropriate educational and career plan.
The problem, according to Lauren Klein, JVS coordinator of rehabilitation services, is that most schools do not undertake such evaluations. While high schools are required to provide transition services to its students, few know what steps to take,” she said.
“Without the evaluation, there’s a lot of, ‘Oh, let’s try this; oh, let’s try that,” said Klein in an interview after the workshop. “If you identify a student’s aptitude, ability, achievement, and limitations, it allows you not to have a shoot-and-miss approach, but a much clearer focus of what can be done.”
Without such a plan, according to Klein, students graduate or age out of the education system at 21, find their way to the NJ Department of Vocational Rehabilitation Services, and — instead of being ready to find a job — they are just beginning the process.
“If you’re already doing this in ninth, 10th, 11th, and 12th grade, when you get to DVRS, they can help [the special-needs individual] find a job immediately,” she said.
To address this issue, JVS received a grant three years ago — first supported by the DVRS with the Christopher Reeve Foundation and for the past two years by DVRS alone — to provide individual schools with up to four free vocational evaluations.
So far, JVS has provided a total of 170 free evaluations at 55 schools around the state.
The current grant runs out Dec. 31. JVS plans to apply to have the grant renewed for another year.
‘A genuine response’
About 80 people from 40 school districts around New Jersey attended the workshop.
Brian Fitzgibbons, acting director of the NJ Division of Vocational Rehabilitation Services, addresses a gathering of educators and social workers at a Sept. 24 JVS workshop on vocational evaluations for special-needs students.
Brian Fitzgibbons, acting director of NJ DVRS, addressed them. He pointed to the need for parents to start planning for their children’s futures when the children are still in high school, and to advocate for evaluations.
“The big cliff everyone falls off is when they go from entitlement programs to eligibility programs. Our biggest challenge is explaining to parents that services are not a given. The bus stops down the road, and they must make plans now,” he said.
Although JVS has long provided vocational evaluations at its East Orange site, they can be long (as many as 25 days to administer) and cumbersome for those who need to travel to East Orange. For the grant, JVS created a shorter evaluation that takes three hours a day for three days, which they administer on site at individual high schools (see sidebar).
For Diahann DeRuggiero of the Henry P. Becton Regional High School in East Rutherford, the workshop was eye-opening.
A social worker on the school’s child study team, she said, “Transition is a huge part of what we do, especially when it comes to planning. We are not doing evaluations. I’d like to find out more.”
She said parents often opt not to have evaluations done because of the stigma attached. “But not every kid is college material,” she said. “If we touted it as career planning, that would be helpful.”
One of the biggest problems she encounters is interviewing students in their sophomore or junior year who don’t know what they want to do in terms of career.
“This will help students see where their interests are. When they say they don’t know, it’s a genuine response. But this type of evaluation flushes out where their interests are and points them in a direction.”
To the test
In the vocational evaluation administered by Jewish Vocational Service of MetroWest, special-needs high school students are tested in a variety of areas, including reading, math, learning styles, and occupational interests.
Students participate in a hands-on activity that simulates a work environment or tasks they might have to complete on a job. These can include assembling pipes according to a diagram, sorting nuts and bolts, making change from a cash drawer, or proofreading.
Evaluators check for manual dexterity, attention span, frustration management, computational skills, spatial discriminations, neatness, ability to plan, and eye-hand coordination.
Once the testing is complete, JVS provides a comprehensive report that summarizes current disabilities, what students enjoy in their leisure time, how they assess their own interests and progress, and possible functional limitations. The report also includes the student’s work or internship experience, specific data from reading and math levels, and behavior during the testing.
The report concludes with a lengthy summing up of recommendations, including specific assistance the person should receive prior to graduation.
— JOHANNA GINSBERG
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