Increases: Summary of changes-Continued A. "Built-in": Annualization of two rehabilitation research and training centers financed in 1962 for 72 percent of year--- B. Program increases: 1. Research and demonstrations__. Subtotal, program increases__ Total net change requested___ EXPLANATION OF CHANGES $277,000 1, 225, 000 3, 200, 000 4, 425, 000 4, 702, 000 Research and demonstrations.-An increase of $1,225,000 is requested in continuation costs. A total of 205 projects started in prior years will be continued in 1963 at a cost of $7,200,000 as compared to the $5,975,000 required to continue 185 ongoing projects during 1962. New projects will be maintained at the same level as in 1962-85 projects and $3,000,000. The projects being continued in 1963 include 11 projects started in 1961 and 1962 to demonstrate the feasibility of rehabilitating the severely disabled. These relatively large-scale projects average about $76,000 each as compared to an average continuation cost of about $32,000 per project estimated for the 1962 continuation program and for the other 194 projects in the 1963 continuation program. Training. An increase of $3,200,000 is requested to provide (a) an additional $208,000 required to continue the 1962 level of teaching grants, traineeships, and fellowships; and (b) $2,992,000 for new programs in the following areas: (1) $705,000 for 46 new long-term teaching grants, of which 24 will be in the fields of medicine, physical therapy, and psychology; (2) $1,920,000 for 875 new longterm traineeships, principally in the fields of rehabilitation counseling ($84,000 is included for tuition in this field), speech and hearing, occupational therapy, and physical therapy; (3) $350,000 to assist educational institutions in providing short-term, intensive courses to increase the professional competence of workers now in rehabilitation (35 instructional grants, $150,000; and 1,800 traineeships, $200,000); and (4) $17,000 to provide 4 additional research fellowships to facilitate the entry of qualified research workers into the field of rehabilitation. Fiscal year 1959 Fiscal year 1960 Fiscal year 1961 Fiscal year 1962 Fiscal year 1963 Num- Amount Num- Amount Num- Amount Num- Amount Num- Amount ber ber ber ber ber 1 Includes $110,000 obligated in 1961 against the $200,000 appropriated in 1960 on a no-year basis for the Hot Springs, Ark., hospital project. STATEMENT BY DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF VOCATIONAL REHABILITATION, ON RESEARCH AND TRAINING, OFFICE OF VOCATIONAL REHABILITATION An appropriation of $23,900,000 is requested for research and training in 1963, an increase of $4,702,000 over the 1962 operating budget plan. Of the total, $10,200,000 is for "Research and demonstration," $12,700,000 for "Training," and $1 million for the "Special center program" (rehabilitation research and training centers). These activities, which are conducted under sections 4 and 7 of the Vocational Rehabilitation Act, as amended, are described in detail below. Of the $10.2 million requested for research and demonstrations in 1963, $7.2 million (an increase of $1,225,000 over 1962) is required to continue support of 205 projects started in prior years, and $3 million is requested to initiate 85 new projects which is the same level as is provided for in the 1962 operating budget plan. Program purposes.-Research and demonstration projects are vital to the improvement and expansion of the Nation's public and private programs for the vocational rehabilitation of the disabled. The projects sponsored by the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation have a wide variety of direct, constructive effects among which are (1) the development of new professional information, methods and devices for more effectively reducing physical, psychological, and social components of disability and for evaluating, training, and placing into employment disabled persons including the extension of rehabilitation services to those disabled persons with the more severe disabilities for whom little could be done previously; and (2) the creation of new job opportunities by demonstrating, through the use of new knowledge and methods, the capacity of disabled persons to produce under competitive conditions in jobs previously closed to them. CURRENT PROGRAMS Significant progress was made in the research and demonstration program in fiscal year 1961. New grant applications processed in 1961 totaled 213, the largest of any year to date, and at least 250 applications are anticipated during 1962 and 300 during 1963. The new grant awards approved in 1961 were widely distributed among disability categories and other technical areas important to vocational rehabilitation. In 1961 greater emphasis was given to a program of research and demonstrations for the rehabilitation of the more severely disabled and this emphasis is being increased in 1962. These increases have permitted an acceleration of research and demonstration efforts leading toward the provision of rehabilitation services to more of the severely disabled groups. Illustrative of these efforts are the programs now underway in the severe disability categories of aging and chronic illness, mental illness, and mental retardation. Projects in aging and chronic illness categories.-In 1961 nearly 20 percent of the new projects were concentrated in the fields of aging and chronic illness. Included were five selected demonstration projects for work evaluation, training, and placement for older disabled workers and 16 additional projects covering a variety of problems in the general areas. This category also includes projects to demonstrate the feasibility of rehabilitating severely disabled persons. In 1961, five projects of this type were initiated and six more projects have been started in 1962. These 11 projects, running for 3 years each, will provide sufficient information and experience to carry out the objective. These projects are designed to encourage the State vocational rehabilitation agencies to take into their caseloads more of the very severely disabled who are not now being served in quantity. The grants for these projects provide funds for case services, research, and general project administration. The design calls for the selection of cases, at least during the first year, from persons who have been allowed OASI disability benefits. Projects for disabled youth.-Coupled with the keen awareness of the National Advisory Council on Vocational Rehabilitation of the need to meet the requirements of all disabled youth, there has been an increasing willingness on the part of educators to assume greater responsibility for handicapped secondary and college students. As a result, a growing number of projects assist slow learners of high school age as well as the intellectually gifted disabled who desire to attend college. Colleges and universities generally are not equipped to meet the special but limited needs of the severely disabled gifted student. Some forward strides have been made in this area but all disabled boys and girls of college caliber still do not have equal opportunity to attain their educational aspirations. A study by the University of Florida that clearly showed the favorable impact of college experience covered more than 300 communities in six States and involved a total of about 500 disabled persons of whom about half were disabled college students. Results conclusively demonstrated that occupational success as well as personal and social adjustment were profoundly and favorably affected by college experience. A project at the Kansas State Teachers College will study the experience of a number of colleges and universities throughout the United States in meeting the needs of handicapped students. A handbook will be published for college administrators providing information on college facilities and services necessary for handicapped students. The University of Missouri has undertaken a long-range regional project, initially supported in part by the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation, to establish facilities and services needed by severely handicapped students. One phase of this program concerns existing facilities-student union, health center, dormitories, administrative offices, and class rooms, etc.-adapted to special needs of students having ambulatory difficulties requiring ramps, elevators, and other physical aids. Rehabilitation of the mentally ill In stressing the role of rehabilitation in the restoration of the mentally ill, the final report of the Joint Commission on Mental Health and Illness states: "The objective of modern treatment of persons with major mental illness is to enable the patient to maintain himself in the community in a normal manner ***." The Commission thus corroborates the objectives of the research and demonstration program. Since its inception, approved projects have been concerned with establishing, developing community use, and improving therapeutic and vocational rehabilitation techniques of the rehabilitation-oriented therapeutic community hospital, the day hospital, the half-way house, work therapy in the hospital and in related vocational workshop facilities, screening of hospital cases for rehabilitation potential, outpatient counseling and rehabilitation aftercare, and evaluation, work training, and intensive placement for emotionally disturbed persons. The need of the future is to weld together in the community a complete series of the services developed and tested in specialized projects. Such projects would offer under one comprehensive plan vocational counseling and testing, sheltered workshop experience, placement and followup, residence in a half-way house, individual and family counseling, various group therapies and phychiatric consultation. Rehabilitation of the mentally retarded As in the case of the mentally ill, rehabilitation of the mentally retarded requires mobilization of many specialized rehabilitation services in the community and the coordination of these with the general program and specific services of other public and private organizations and agencies. A number of these individual program elements and factors have been de veloped and tested in isolated projects, but no project has marshaled all of them in a single community as a definitive, controlled experiment and demonstration of a full-scale community effort. General grant program The level of productivity and the rate at which new problems are defined and attacked are dependent upon a policy of making a significant number of new grants each year to a wide variety of research and demonstration under |