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CHRONOLOGY ON PROPOSED VOCATIONAL REHABILITATION ACT AMENDMENTS

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OF 1965

In his health message, President Johnson promised a
new life for the disabled and recommended legislation.
Administration proposals to amend the Vocational
Rehabilitation Act sent to Congress.

S. 1525 (Hill, of Alabama) introduced in Senate.
H.R. 6476 (Green of Oregon) introduced in House.
H.R. 6851 (O'Hara of Michigan) introduced in House.
Hearings on S. 1525 before the Subcommittee on Health,
Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, U.S. Senate.
H.R. 6971 (Fogarty, of Rhode Island) introduced in
House.

H.R. 7373 (Sickles, of Maryland) introduced in House
to eliminate economic need as eligibility requirement
for vocational rehabilitation services.

Hearings on H.R. 6476 and similar bills before the
Special Subcommittee on Education, Committee on
Education and Labor, House of Representatives.

H.R. 7535 (Pepper, of Florida) introduced in House.
H.R. 8132 (O'Hara of Michigan) reported a "clean" bill.
H.R. 8310 (Daniels, of New Jersey) introduced in House.
House Committee on Education and Labor reported on
H.R. 8310 (H. Rept. 432).

Rule granted by House Rules Committee.

House of Representatives passed H.R. 8310.

Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare reported on H.P. 8310 (S. Rept. 806).

Senate passed H.R. 8310, amended to substitute the
language of S. 1525 for the language of H.R. 8310
and with further amendments.

Senate passed conference report on H.R. 8310 (Conf.
Rept. No. 1204).

House passed conference report on H.R. 8310 (Conf.
Rept. No. 1204).

65

PART III. NEW DIRECTIONS IN VOCATIONAL REHABILITATION FOR THE NEXT DECADE

With the prospect of the tremendous opportunities opened up by the Vocational Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1965, and with the background of vocational rehabilitation's energetic accomplishments over the past 10 years, the Nation's vocational rehabilitation program looks forward to realizing some of its major dreams in the coming decade.

The themes of these dreams were expressed time and again in the testimony presented by expert witnesses during the hearings when these amendments were under consideration. Running through all the testimony was the dominant hope that the physically and mentally disabled among our people should have their chance to participate in the Great Society, to work to achieve it and to benefit under it.

Translated into rehabilitation terms, this hope is to reach greater proportions of the disabled who need rehabilitation services to restore them to useful, productive living through gainful employment and participation in family and community activities. Also in the forefront are the goals of improving the quality of services provided to the disabled and of extending services to disability groups where the surface now is hardly being scratched.

In the coming decade rehabilitation workers will learn how to venture beyond traditional rehabilitation which has focused on rehabilitating those with comparatively static disabling conditions-to rehabilitate those with progressive disabling conditions such as multiple sclerosis and muscular dystrophy, and other groups hitherto almost unreached such as those disabled by cancer or stroke or the disabled offender against the law.

Companion to these large goals are objectives for developing the means for reaching these goals. The key is to raise the scale of the public rehabilitation program to a far higher level so that instead of serving half a million disabled persons a year, three, four, or five times as many would be served and as many as 300,000 to 400,000 rehabilitated in any one year.

This objective calls for support through financing, facilities, and trained manpower.

Clear signs of beginning ferment to achieve quality improvement of existing workshops for the disabled and to construct badly needed new workshops were repeatedly evident during the hearings for consideration of these amendments. Also evident was the objective of strengthening existing rehabilitation facilities of various kinds from the comprehensive vocationally oriented facility capable of serving all disabilities to the specialized single disability center, and building to begin to meet the needs for new ones.

To underpin and make all this advance possible, two other objectives are to continue the research for new knowledge and the training of new skilled professional personnel, so vital to advancing the rehabilitation of the disabled.

Attaining these high goals and objectives will clearly call for a fusion of public and private rehabilitation efforts. In its 45 years, the rehabilitation program has been characterized by the close, effective cooperation between the public and the voluntary sectors.

Mary E. Switzer's forwardlooking article "Rehabilitation-A Decade Hence," which appears as appendix D, noted that the reach of rehabilitation already transcends this one public program and called upon the "hundreds of voluntary groups and facilities, universities, public agencies in health, welfare, and special program fields" to organize and get on with aggressive rehabilitation programs to meet the current and impending demands for rehabilitation services. "One of the great tests of the next 10 years will be to see whether, when the developmental state of rehabilitation in the United States gives way to a massive attack upon disability among our people, the rehabilitation movement can merge group interest into a truly cooperative national effort."

In this next decade, the rehabilitation program will be developing what is now an emerging trend to regionalize special research and/or service providing facilities, as well as specialized training facilities, in order to cope effectively with the problems of rehabilitating certain particularly catastrophic disability groups, such as persons disabled by spinal cord injuries or stroke, and others like the mentally retarded and the deaf.

The developing role of the workshop in vocational rehabilitationas a clinical tool and resource in the diagnosis and treatment of the disabled and as a place offering transitional and long-term employment for the disabled as well as for the socially and economically disadvantaged of various types-will receive concentrated attention in the coming decade.

Greater involvement of the family of the disabled person in his rehabilitation; more extensive followup after the disabled person is successfully placed in a job; greater attention to rehabilitating a disabled person beyond the scant level of employment to a level that makes full use of his abilities; greater attention to mobility aids for those disabled who depend on such aids-these are some of the aspects for improvement which rehabilitation will pursue with study and experimentation.

Another strong focus will be concerned with accommodating the vocational training and job placement of disabled persons to the changes automation is bringing. Rehabilitation will necessarily be more alert to choosing for the disabled occupational fields which will not be seriously disrupted by automation and which in fact will be favored by progress in automation. Beginning steps such as those taken in connection with vending stand operations by qualified blind operators and training of the blind in computer operations will be multiplied many times.

Rehabilitation will also join forces with other major public programs such as the new Medicare and special and vocational education programs to improve the services provided to the disabled. Rehabilitation will continue its intensive work with the President's Committee on Employment of the Handicapped to develop employer receptiveness to hiring the handicapped.

In the package of amendments to the Social Security Act passed during this session of Congress, along with medicare, was authority to

use money from the old-age and survivors disability insurance trust fund to pay 100 percent of the cost incurred by State vocational rehabilitation agencies in providing rehabilitation services to beneficiaries of this fund. In the next decade, vocational rehabilitation will have this activity as a strong focus. The authority to use trust funds. for this purpose has two objectives: to help more beneficiaries return to a productive and gainful livelihood and to achieve savings of the OASDI trust fund.

Rehabilitation of the disabled has now gained well nigh universal acceptance as a key part of the Nation's emphasis on making the maximum possible use of our human resources, with its recognition of the importance of preventing disability and the equally important obligations for doing something constructive about disability promptly when it does occur.

The President's health message to this Congress on January 7, 1965, introduced his recommendations for "a new life for the disabled." With these Vocational Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1965, the prospects of this new life can be within our grasp.

SELECTED REFERENCES ON VOCATIONAL REHABILITATION

Macdonald, Mary E., "Federal Grants for Vocational Rehabilitation," University of Chicago Press, 1944.

Switzer, Mary E., and Howard Rusk, M.D., "Doing Something for the Disabled," Public Affairs Pamphlet No. 197, May 1959.

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Obermann, C. Esco, History of Vocational Rehabilitation," T. S. Dennison & Co., Inc., 1965.

Vocational Rehabilitation Administration, "For the Disabled-Help Through Vocational Rehabilitation," Pamphlet, 1965.

Task Force on the Handicapped, "Report to the Chairman, Manpower Policy Committee," Office of Defense Mobilization, January 1952.

Annual reports, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Vocational Rehabilitation Section.

Handbook on Programs of the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Part II, 1964-1965.

President's Panel on Mental Retardation, "A Proposed Program for National Action To Combat Mental Retardation" (report to the President), October 1962.

President's Commission on Heart Disease, Cancer, and Stroke, "A National Program to Conquer Heart Disease, Cancer, and Stroke" (report to the President), December 1964.

Switzer, Mary E., "Vocational Rehabilitation in the United States," reprint from International Labour Review, March 1958.

Report of Committee on Education and Labor, House of Representatives, on Vocational Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1965, to accompany H.R. 8310, Report No. 432, May 28, 1965.

Special Subcommittee on Education, Committee on Education and Labor, House of Representatives, hearings on Vocational Rehabilitation Act Amendments, H. R. 6476, April 1965.

Subcommittee on Health, Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, U.S. Senate, on the President's health recommendations and related measures: Part 1 on S. 2758 on facilities and part 2 on S. 2759 on vocational rehabilitation, MarchApril 1954.

Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, U.S. Senate, report to accompany S. 2759 on vocational rehabilitation of the disabled, Report 1626, June 22, 1954. Committee on Education and Labor, House of Representatives, "Hearings on House Resolution 115, Assistance and Rehabilitation of the Physically Handicapped," July 1953.

Subcommittee of Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, U.S. Senate, hearings on bills relating to vocational rehabilitation of the physically handicapped, S. 1066, S. 2273, and S. 3465, May 1950.

Periodicals:

Journal of Rehabilitation, National Rehabilitation Association.
Rehabilitation Record, Vocational Rehabilitation Administration.

Rehabilitation Literature, National Society for Crippled Children and
Adults.

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