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STATEMENT
OF JULIUS
M. WILLIAMS, JR. DIRECTOR,
VOCATIONAL REHABILITATION AND
EMPLOYMENT SERVICE DEPARTMENT
OF VETERANS AFFAIRS BEFORE
THE HOUSE VETERANS’ AFFAIRS SUBCOMMITTEE
ON BENEFITS TUESDAY,
OCTOBER 30, 2001
Good morning Mr. Chairman, and members of the Subcommittee.
It is a pleasure for me to be here today to discuss with you
the status of VA’s Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment (VR&E)
program for service disabled veterans.
I’d like to acknowledge our employment partners at the
Department of Labor who also are here today.
No one could have said it more eloquently than the 65th
Congress when it passed the World War Veterans Act in 1924:
"The test of rehabilitation shall be employability."
Certainly both we at the Department of Veterans Affairs and our
colleagues at the Department of Labor take very seriously the charge
to help disabled veterans overcome employment obstacles and find and
keep suitable employment. We
recognize the challenges we collectively have to ensure our Nation’s
disabled veterans achieve the rehabilitation goal.
You may note that the program’s name has changed since the
last time we addressed the Subcommittee.
The Department made the change from "Vocational
Rehabilitation and Counseling" to "Vocational Rehabilitation
and Employment" to emphasize our commitment to helping disabled
veterans transition from their military life to suitable,
career-oriented employment. This
new name conveys a more meaningful message to most VR&E program
participants of the programs ultimate mission, while not detracting
from the fact that rehabilitation is at the heart of what we do –
especially for the most seriously disabled.
This refocused commitment to serving the rehabilitation and
employment needs of America’s disabled veterans has meant much more
than a simple name change. In the past few years, we have dramatically
transformed the VR&E program to one that is more strategic and
outcome-oriented. For a
third year, the VR&E program has rehabilitated over 10,000
disabled veterans, a goal that was considered five years ago to be a
“stretch goal.” The
key catalyst that underlies VR&E’s success and continues to
drive our strategies for the future is our desire to provide the most
effective, highest quality, state-of-the-art rehabilitation and
employment services to disabled veterans.
We define quality services in terms of several overarching
themes that directly influence our success in achieving our mission
and goals. These themes
are a focus on positive outcomes, quality assurance, strategic
planning, succession planning and workforce development, and enhanced
technology.
Positive Outcomes. The
VR&E program has two primary outcomes – ·
suitable
employment for those disabled veterans who are able to overcome
employment barriers created by their disabilities, ·
independence
in daily living for the most seriously disabled veterans who are
unable to return to work because of their disabilities but who do
achieve an improvement in independence in their living activities. For
the past several years, VR&E has focused on improving its
performance in both of these outcome areas.
We have improved the rate of rehabilitation from 41 percent at
the end of Fiscal Year 1998 to 65 percent in Fiscal Year 2001.
During this same time, we have seen the rehabilitation rate of
disabled veterans with serious employment handicaps increase from 35.8
percent to 64 percent. Quality Assurance.
In November 1998, VR&E reinstated the Quality Assurance
program. This
collaborative process filled a tremendous void left by four years
without any VR&E Quality Assurance review.
A sampling of each regional office’s work is reviewed twice a
year. At the conclusion
of each review, the regional office receives notification of the
results, to include the identification of both successes and
deficiencies, and instructions of how to submit cases for
re-evaluation. When areas
of concern are identified, the review results in additional refresher
training for VR&E staff, improved accuracy and improved services
to better meet the needs of disabled veterans. At
the end of the first year of review, September 1999, VR&E
established a baseline for measuring the accuracy of cases in future
reviews. For example, at the end of Fiscal Year 2000, baseline
accuracy for decisions relating to a veteran’s program entitlement
was measured at 89 percent. At
the end of Fiscal Year 2001, accuracy in this area rose to 93 percent. Other areas of VR&E’s performance are not so easily
measured because veterans participating in the VR&E program
receive individualized services based on their unique needs.
Performance relating to overall accuracy, therefore, represents
some challenges. However,
we continue to develop the most measurable criteria in a program that
is very subjective in nature.
Beginning
this fiscal year, we are adding a fourth category to focus on the
accuracy of decisions regarding a veteran’s achieving and
maintaining suitable employment or independence in daily living. Succession Planning
and Workforce Development.
VR&E’s workforce is key to achieving all of our goals.
Not unlike many organizations, we too are faced with a
retirement-eligible workforce. Historically,
the career pattern within the Department has been increased hiring
after World War II and the Korean Conflict to address the needs of
veterans returning from those engagements. Over time, these employees retired and the Vietnam Era
employee entered our workforce. At
the beginning of this year, the average age of VR&E’s field
managers was 54 years and the average age of the clinical staff in the
field was 51 years. The
Vietnam Era employee has reached or nears retirement and we will once
again find VA in a hiring cycle that coincides with a shift in
military focus and activities. We
have an obligation to hand-off a quality program to the next
generation of dedicated and trained staff.
We must recruit, retain, and develop the best staff if we are
to continue the improvements we have achieved in our performance.
In the past two years, we have aggressively augmented our
workforce by adding new competency mixes to our clinical staff.
We have hired Vocational Rehabilitation Counselors who bring to
service delivery knowledge and experience in clinical skills and case
management techniques. Additionally,
we have hired Employment Specialists who bring an entirely new skill
mix to our program’s staffs. Employment
Specialists act as case managers for employers, advocates for the
value of hiring disabled veterans, and workforce consultants to an
anxious pool of employers. The
positive relationship and role the Employment Specialist plays as the
employer’s case manager will become increasing more critical in
times of economic shifts – upward or downward, but particularly the
latter.
Enhanced Technology.
Parallel to VR&E’s commitment to improving service
delivery and performance is our commitment to improving the
program’s information management and technology infrastructure.
VR&E must track a veteran’s progress through the phases
of rehabilitation and employment for a number of reasons.
Most important is for us to be able to respond to the
veteran’s needs in efficient ways and be able to use the data about
program participants for strategic and resource planning.
In
September of this year, we completed national deployment of VR&E’s
new case management information management system, which we call
Corporate WINRS. This new
case management information system supports field VR&E staff in
their case management efforts and assists VR&E managers, case
managers and veterans in making well-informed decisions affecting the
veterans entitlement to benefits and services.
Corporate WINRS also reduces redundant computer-based inputs
and facilitates interactive communication between regional offices,
out-based staff and veterans.
The power of these themes is derived from the focus on
redefining the most important goals and the development of effective
strategies, which I will now describe, that lay the groundwork to
continue our momentum for improvement.
Corporate WINRS.
As mentioned, our new case management information system,
Corporate WINRS was deployed nationally in September.
In addition to the benefits described earlier, this new
technology tool enables us to computerize tremendous amounts of data
about program participants, such as benefits data; financial data,
including payments to contract service providers; and statistical data
that will enhance our ability to make data-driven decisions in the
future.
Regulation Rewrite.
We have completed a draft revision of the Code of Federal
Regulations pertaining to the VR&E program.
Our goals in this initiative are to ensure we have incorporated
into the regulations all necessary substantive provisions, as well as
instructive procedural requirements; to simplify the rules governing
our program; and to prepare the regulations in the Reader Focus
Writing format. Our next
steps in this process include meeting with key stakeholders, as well
as VA’s Office of the General Counsel, to ensure legal sufficiency. It is our desire to have these draft regulations through the
regulatory process by spring 2002.
Case Management
Redesign. This
initiative promotes three concepts to better serve disabled veterans
participating in programs of rehabilitation and employment. ·
VR&E
will ensure that disabled veterans receive more individualized
services based on their needs and will receive these services in a
timely manner. ·
VR&E
will bring its case management services more in-line with the general
trends in the field of rehabilitation, whereby clients have a more
active role in their rehabilitation programs. ·
VR&E is
developing a caseload-management tool to assist its field staff to
effectively deliver services to the large numbers of veterans in their
caseloads.
Following a successful case management demonstration project,
we have begun implementing redesigned practices to improve case
management and promote effective and efficient service delivery to
disabled veterans. These redesigned practices include emphasizing employment at
the earliest point in assessing the veteran’s need for services,
focusing on increasing the veteran’s self-sufficiency; and
redirecting case managers to veterans who have multiple rehabilitation
needs, particularly the most seriously disabled.
Employment Specialist
Program. VR&E
initiated the Employment Specialist Pilot Project to better serve
veterans, meet employers’ recruiting and staffing challenges, and
demonstrate that program participants are on a track to employment.
After studying other rehabilitation organizations, VR&E
benchmarked itself against best practices found within the
rehabilitation community. Our
Employment Specialist Program was implemented and this program has
recently received strong endorsement from the Department’s VR&E
Blue Ribbon Panel of Experts which was comprised of rehabilitation
professionals, academicians, key service organization representatives,
many of whom testified before the Congressional Commission on
Servicemembers and Veterans Transition Assistance. VR&E’s
Employment Specialist position adds a new skill and competency mix to
the rehabilitation staff that allows for the effective case management
of potential employers.
The Employment Specialist Pilot was another success for the VR&E
program in Fiscal Year 2000 and the concepts of this program have been
deployed nationally. The
methodology being used by Employment Specialists includes: ·
creating
significant market awareness related to the value of employing
disabled veterans ·
stimulating
employer demand for trained disabled veteran-employees to satisfy
recruitment, retention, and succession planning strategies ·
communicating
these career opportunities back to veterans ·
target
veteran educational and training efforts specifically to meet market
and employer demands Independent Living.
Within VR&E’s overall focus on meeting the needs of the
most seriously disabled veterans, we find that current legislation
relating to the number of veterans who may enter programs of
independent living jeopardizes our legal standing to serve disabled
veterans. Consistent with
the aging veteran population and the expansion of rules permitting VA
to recognize a variety of disabilities that pose serious health
issues, we are finding a rapidly increasing number of veterans
eligible for and in need of independent living services.
Under
current law, however, the number of veterans to whom the services can
be provided is limited to 500 annually.
We note that S. 1088 contains a provision that would remove
this cap. We would urge
the House to support the enactment of this provision which would
enable us to provide these needed independent living services. Increased Access
Points.
Affording veterans quick, convenient access to information and
assistance remains a cornerstone of VR&E’s vision.
Communications and outreach efforts have already improved
access by directing veterans to preferred sources of information.
VR&E expanded its definition of access to apply beyond a
purely regional office to a more community-based focus. Within the scope of this definition, VR&E staff is
being located where veterans need them.
Within the past two years, VR&E has created more out-based
locations at a variety of access points such as Benefits Delivery at
Discharge (BDD) sites and VA community-based outpatient clinics. This has produced more flexible office hours, and has
expanded the use of teleconferencing for orientation and group
sessions as a means of access to veterans in remote areas. Additionally,
our access strategy applies to information technology as well as
staff. Through the use of the Corporate WINRS system for
veteran-specific information, the Internet to conduct searches of
employment resources such as Department of Labor’s America’s Job
Bank, Talent Bank, and Career Infonet, veterans and staff are
connected to an increased amount of valuable information to help them
succeed. These
information technology capabilities, coupled with VR&E’s new
transferable skills analysis tool, which is also Internet based, not
only enhances the VR&E staffs’ abilities to provide services but
also promotes the self-sufficiency concepts prescribed by Case
Management principles.
Executive Order 13163.
Under the Executive Order, the federal government is asked to
increase the number of disabled persons in its workforce over the next
several years by 100,000 individuals.
Disabled veterans, especially those VR&E serves, represent
a valuable resource solution to the recruitment strategies being
implemented within all federal departments and agencies.
VR&E stands ready to provide well-trained, talented
employees to any federal department recruiting under this Executive
directive. VR&E
is developing an aggressive strategy and marketing plan to get federal
agencies to look at VR&E’s program graduates as their first
option to fulfill their disabled hiring goals. Quality Assurance
Redesign.
Earlier in my statement, I mentioned that in November 1998, we
reinstated the Quality Assurance program.
The first stages of the reinstatement have been well tested.
Now we are examining ways to improve the review process,
determining if any additional elements or service delivery activities
need to be reviewed, such as accuracy of outcome decisions, and we are
improving our data collection and retrieval mechanisms.
We expect to have identified areas for improvement in place by
the first review process in late November of this year.
Financial Activities.
One area of our business most in need of streamlining is the
process VR&E undertakes to purchase routine goods for veterans
participating in training as part of their rehabilitation and
employment plans. VR&E
is collaborating with the Department of Treasury to pilot test the use
of debit cards for certain financial activities.
We believe use of the debit card will facilitate the purchase
of routine goods, services, or supplies, such as books or payment of
tuition and fees, without the handoffs and delays that currently occur
between the veteran, the VR&E staff member, the training facility,
and supplier. We expect
to begin pilot testing the use of debit cards sometime this fall or
early next year. Leveraging
Partnerships.
VR&E is dedicated to establishing strategic partnerships
with other government agencies, employers, employment services
providers, and educational and training institutions to improve the
percentage of veterans who achieve rehabilitation and attain suitable
employment. Strong
networks and linkages with professionals outside the VR&E program
greatly enhance our ability to meet the needs of disabled veterans and
decrease the time it takes for a veteran to become employed.
It also is an efficient and effective way for staff to expand
its knowledge on a variety of issues, including new developments in
vocational rehabilitation, training, labor markets, and comprehensive
employment services. One
of our greatest partnering opportunities is with the Department of
Labor. In order to
improve effectiveness of this partnership, VA and DoL have jointly
conducted training for our staffs that capitalize on the principles of
case management, employment services, job placement, and the shared
desire to see veterans rehabilitated with suitable employment.
Additionally, we have met with DoL to discuss our shared data needs,
especially as they relate to measuring outcomes.
This partnership is not only necessary, but also enhances our
ability to mutually understand the complex needs of disabled veterans
and the issues implicated in the conceptual goal that veterans
participating in the VR&E program are considered rehabilitated
only when they get and keep a suitable employment. We
realize there are challenges ahead of us and VA’s Vocational
Rehabilitation and Employment Service is anxious to work with the
incoming leadership at DoL’s Veterans Employment and Training
Service to ensure that we collaborate to achieve the highest level of
service we can provide to disabled veterans. Additionally,
consistent with Public Law 106-50, we, along with VA’s Office of
Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization and the Small Business
Administration, are strengthening our support to disabled veterans who
are seeking self-employment opportunities. Economic Impacts.
Beyond the obvious economic damage of September 11, 2001 - the
stock-market plunge, airline layoffs and the heightened risk of
recession - is another threat: an end to the late-1990s era of low
unemployment. On October
5, 2001, DoL released its monthly employment report for September,
which reported the unemployment rate remained at 4.9%, the same as in
August. But the report was based on surveys taken before the wave of
post-Sept. 11 layoffs. And,
even the report's earlier data suggest a considerable weakening of the
labor market, pointing to higher joblessness in the future
- a challenge for VR&E’s program participants who
benefited from the late-1990s boom. Businesses cut payrolls by 199,000
in September, the biggest monthly cut of jobs since February 1991,
during the last recession. Since
January, payrolls have fallen by 800,000 persons. To
address these emerging issues, we are convening a symposium of experts
from the fields of rehabilitation, economics, commerce, labor and
employment to help us develop both short- and long-term strategies to
address any future fluctuations in employment and the economy.
It is our goal to develop strategies both from the
rehabilitation perspectives and from the standpoint of projected
employment opportunities. Many
of the initiatives described today, particularly our Access
initiative, are being implemented in effective ways due largely to the
flexibility created by the authority granted us to transfer funds from
the VR&E Readjustment Account to the General Operating Expense
Fund. Aligning resources
consistent with best service delivery models allows staff in the field
offices the ability to increase or decrease dependency on contract
service providers. Mr.
Chairman, I would like to end my testimony by again expressing VA’s
commitment to meeting not only the needs of the current population of
disabled veterans, but also the needs of future disabled veterans.
With these uncertain times, I can assure you that the program
stands ready with a cadre of experienced, concerned and dedicated
counseling staff to serve America’s veterans and their families
particularly in areas of grief counseling and crisis counseling.
We have been there for past tragedies to serve in whatever role
we are needed, and we confirm to you, the Subcommittee, and the rest
of America our readiness today to do the same. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and I will be pleased to answer any questions you or other members of the Subcommittee may have. Back to Witness List |