This is the point that I have made within the testimony. I think, however, sir, that we must point out in saying that that people in vocational rehabilitation don't want to stand alone or to exclude themselves from the innovations taking place in the human service delivery system. We want to be part of it, and we want to be at the core of it. We want to be involved in the most effective way for handicapped people. But we think the law you have given us gives us every flexibility to do this and to establish linkage, joint program efforts, cooperative thirdparty funding efforts with anybody in the human delivery system who wants to serve handicapped people.

I don't see that as any bar or threat or detriment to the effective innovating of the system to help handicapped people.

Chairman PERKINS. Let's just assume that the Administration lets the administration of the program in the regional offices continue to drift, as it is presently drifting, how would you suggest that we stop this drifting in order to let this program stand out once and for all as it will be operated separately as a vocational rehabilitation program in such a manner as you have described to this committee?

I take it from your testimony that you have been administering this program for a period of years down there, and you know what you are talking about. You impress me that way at least. Just what would be your suggestion to keep this program from drifting and getting bogged down and merged and destroy the innovations and great strides in rehabilitating people that we have made in training people? What would be your chief suggestion, assuming under the present law that it is going to continue to drift.

Now the administrators will have a right to respond a little later to that, but just what suggestion can you give us here at this time? We have to ask people with good judgment, and good administrators that can foresee what is happening, how to preserve the integrity of vocational rehabilitation. Would you give us your suggestions?

Mr. MILLS. Sir, I think I would have to indicate that we would depend upon the wisdom and the judgment of the Congress in terms of how this could be effected, or indeed enforced if that becomes necessary. As cited earlier, our joint partnership in this program has been such a close and effective one I would have to express here the hope that this kind of enforcement would not be necessary and that we should be able to depend upon the good will and joint program efforts of the Administration to carry out the provisions of the law.

If this is done, and if both Federal and regional office people work with States in an attitude of good will, of complying with the protective provisions of the statute to preserve the services for handicapped people, I don't think we will have this tendency to drift away or destroy the program's integrity of its central focus on handicapped people. I would hope this would be the course of action that would prevail.

Chairman PERKINS. The reason I speak out so bluntly is because I have observed over a period of years we visited numerous centers back in 1953 up in New York, Warm Springs, and Staunton, Va., others in the South-Georgia. We emphasized in the law what should be done and, to my way of thinking, we are just continuing; we are just beginning to make the real progress that was contemplated-and any obstacles that are placed in the way of this progress-under the

leadership of the distinguished gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Brademas-I want to take my hat off to Mr. Brademas for conducting these hearings, because this has disturbed me down in the mining communities. I have seen people lay there with broken backs and die with bed sores years ago before I came to Congress, and not one thing could be done about it.

But you no longer see a situation like that. If a man's spine is almost destroyed, his lumbar and dorsal region, you see corrections made, and you people are doing a great job, one of the greatest jobs that could possibly be done, and to think about letting this thing go along and be merged and get bogged down would be dereliction on our part. And that is the reason I have said all I want to here. I am going to back this chairman of this subcommittee to the limit, Mr. Brademas, in this program he has sponsored and expanded so greatly in the past few years, to see that this program does not get bogged down.

I guess my district is affected as much as any State in the Nation because of the great number of mining injuries we have had throughout the years, and it really touches me to think of this program getting involved with other related-you may say related but they are not related-social services that are not important to the extent-and it pleases me to see a witness like yourself come here to help this committee out. That is all I have to say.

Mr. BRADEMAS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your eloquence in expressing your deeply felt concern for this program.

The gentleman from Idaho, Mr. Hansen, who has also made a significant contribution to this legislation.

Mr. HANSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I have only one brief question. I note your testimony is extremely important because of your long experience and impressive credentials, including your position of representing the Council of State Administrators of Vocational Rehabilitation.

My question is, do you know of any of the administrators who don't pretty fully share the assessment that is reflected in your own testimony? Is this substantially all of those? I sense from your comments it is, but I would like to have you reinforce that conception if that is true. Mr. MILLS. Mr. Hansen, I don't know whether among 83 individuals one could ever get a total consensus. I was selected to present this because I am a past president of the Council of State Administrators, and have worked with most of the State directors for a relatively long period of time. My testimony was prepared and reviewed by the executive committee of the council, who approved it. The officers of the council approved it. Whether there might be one, two, or five individuals who disagree with it in its entirety or any part of it, one could not state. I think in candor there would be perhaps two or three that would not take the strong position I have with regard to the preservation of the integrity of the program wtihin the States. I think generally these are directors whose experience has been in other programs prior to coming to rehabilitation and who perhaps see it in a different light than I must see it because of my prior experience in it.

I hope I would not be lacking in humility to say that I believe the testimony I have presented would be fully acceptable to more than 90 percent of the members of the Council of State Administrators.

Mr. HANSEN. That was the point I wanted to develop. First you know of no clear dissent, and also it does represent a very broad consensus within those who have the most immediate responsibility for the administration of these programs.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BRADEMAS. The gentleman from your own home State, a member of the subcommittee, Mr. Lehman.

Mr. LEHMAN. Thank you Mr. Chairman.

I want to say it is a privilege to have a man of your dedication serve the State in your capacity for so many years. I just want to see if I could kind of get myself oriented on this problem in relation to Florida, particularly south Florida. We talk in terms of mechanisms, policies, working relationships, delivery of the system. I just wonder, without really faulting anybody or any particular person, could you relate these problems that you are speaking of to the lack of implementation, or the faulty implementation of what this committee's legislation was intended to do, and what it is actually doing under the Vocational Rehabilitation Services or its regional offices? In other words, what is happening in Florida or not happening in Florida, and I guess particularly south Florida, at the grassroots level, because of the lack of proper implementation or the proper administration of this legislation?

Mr. MILLS. Thank you, sir. I think in terms of the organizational arrangements I have described, Mr. Lehman, the impact has not been great on our local people because we have had independence in terms of direction afforded to us by our department at the State level and we, in turn, have tried to extend this to each of our district offices working in the State, and to give them the freedom to establish program working relationships with everyone within the public and private network. On the other hand, I must say to you, sir, that the lack of full fiscal implementation of 93-112 can have a serious impact upon your area of the State, and, indeed, upon every community in the country if one-half of a million dollars is appropriated this year for facility construction and initial staffing and, if this is divided between 50 States and the possessions, this can mean very little in terms of improving and expanding construction or staffing the kind of facilities it takes to serve spinal cord injury cases, renal diseases, catastrophic cases, and trauma cases.

For example, in Miami we have extended a series of workshop and facility grants to create the spinal cord injury system that exists there. This center now serves perhaps less than 20 percent of the spinal cord injuries that occur in the State of Florida. We have long waiting lists for young people with cord injuries who desperately need immediate attention for this catastrophic injury.

If $50 million were indeed appropriated for facilities this year and if Florida could have its share of that kind of allotment, we should be able to extend our facility grant system that we initiated many years ago to places like Jackson Memorial Hospital and other related university centers and other medical facilities in Florida that would enable us to do things in our State like Dr. Rusk and Dr. Lowman are doing in New York, that are being done in Warm Springs, Rancho Amigos, Calif., and other spinal cord places in the country.

Mr. LEHMAN. The same, I assume, would apply to the renal disease facilities in south Florida or throughout the country?

Mr. MILLS. Indeed it would. We have only begun to scratch the surface in this area. Until the passage of the law, there was some question as to whether we had the statutory authority to continue with kidney transplants. We have the authority now. If we can get the resources to proceed, vocational rehabilitation can make a real impact in this area.

Mr. BRADEMAS. Mr. Thornton.

Mr. THORNTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don't have any questions but I would like to thank you for your thoughtfulness and dedication to the humanitarian purpose of this program in conducting these hearings. I would like to endorse what Chairman Perkins said in connection with his questions and would also like to highly commend this witness, Mr. Mills, for his testimony, which I have read, and for the exchange of information which resulted from questions I have listened to.

We do have a strong rehabilitation program in my State of Arkansas, and I am proud of that program headed by Mr. Baxter.

Mr. BRADEMAS. Mr. Mills, thank you, indeed. I think you can see from the questions that members of the committee have put to you how grateful we are for your splendid testimony.

Mr. MILLS. Again my appreciation to you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BRADEMAS. Or next witness is Mr. Carl E. Hansen from the department of special education at the University of Texas and past president of the National Rehabilitation Counseling Association.

Would you summarize your statement, please, and I assure Mr. Dwight-because he has been kind enough to cancel some scheduled appearances elsewhere to be with us today-that we want to hear him. It is obvious there is great interest on the part of the committee in questioning the witnesses and we wanted to be sure Mr. Dwight had an opportunity to hear some of the suggestions and criticisms of the other public witnesses before he appeared. We want to know if you can come back this afternoon if necessary.

Thank you, Mr. Dwight.

Please proceed, Dr. Hansen.

STATEMENT OF CARL E. HANSEN, DEPARTMENT OF SPECIAL EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS, AND PAST PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL REHABILITATION COUNSELING ASSOCIATION, WASHINGTON, D.C.

Dr. HANSEN. I am Carl E. Hansen, immediate past president of the National Rehabilitation Counseling Association, and director of the rehabilitation counselor education program at the University of Texas at Austin.

The National Rehabilitation Counseling Association is the oldest and largest professional association of rehabilitation counselors in the Nation. As such, it represents the interests and concerns of the largest single group of providers of rehabilitation services to the Nation's handicapped citizens.

My purpose for being here today is twofold. First, I would like to discuss the role and importance of the rehabilitation counselor in as

sisting the disabled and disadvantaged citizen return to gainful employment. Second, I will discuss the need for continued moral and financial support for the training and education of the rehabilitation counselor.

Mr. Craig Mills has discussed the necessity for trained counselors and I concur with his comments for trained rehabilitation counselors to serve the disabled of this Nation. As has been pointed out and as we can see, it is the rehabilitation counselor that will implement the full range of services to the handicapped in this country.

The council agrees with the opening statement of Mr. Dwight to this committee that the rehabilitation program is one of the oldest and most successful of the Federal human resources program. However, the National Rehabilitation Counseling Association wishes to challenge, as did Mr. Corbett Reedy, the assumption made recently in an HEW staff proposal to substitute a type of cash assistance program for the current vocational rehabilitation system. Mr. Reedy commented, and we agree, that the vocational rehabilitation counselor plays a critical role in helping the individual develop a rehabilitation plan for his needs and to substitute a cash assistance program would not be a reliable answer to this program.

I would like to point out a couple of points that are concerned in the future in the relationship of the trained rehabilitation counselor. First, the President signed into law on September 26, 1973, Public Law 93-112. The implementation of the law expanded and broadens the scope of the rehabilitation counselor. The question that this brings up is how a document such as the "Morrill Memorandum" can project the demise of the rehabilitation program, while almost simultaneously a new law is signed into effect expanding the program.

Second, Mr. Reedy testified almost 4 million citizens are in need of rehabilitation services. The needs and foreseeable demands of the handicapped necessitate an expansion of our State-Federal program, not a phaseout. We need an upgrading of the system to serve these disabled people.

Third, specialization with disability groups within rehabilitation is becoming more and more necessary. The unique needs of the blind, deaf, the public offender, the disabled welfare recipient, the retarded, et cetera, and now by legislative mandate a greater concentration of services to the severely disabled calls for even greater expertise on behalf of the rehabilitation counselor.

Mr. Chairman, we respectfully submit that this ability cannot be achieved by endless community and administrative reorganizations that have so often characterized recent Federal departmental thinking in the area of human resources.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to address the remainder of my remarks to the need for a continuation of training funds for college programs in rehabilitation counseling.

In 1954, the 83d Congress established a program of financial support for graduate training programs in rehabilitation counseling under Public Law 565. These amendments to the Vocational Rehabilitation Act were designed to improve and expand the Nation's resources for restoring disabled persons to productive employment. Professional training was a feature recognized as primary in the progress obtained in other fields such as health and science.