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Abstract

This article assesses the accuracy and realism of some of the analyses that led to the despairing conclusions and radical recommendations contained in the report A Legacy of Failure: The Inability of the Federal-State Rehabilitation Program to Serve People with Severe Mental Illness, also known as the NAMI report. The author briefly summarizes the main points of the NAMI report and then provides an overview of the federal-state vocational rehabilitation (VR) program, including (a) major changes occurring in the program and how they affect persons with severe mental illness; (b) the forces that promote continued improvements in the program, including improvements in services for persons with severe mental illness; and (c) the extent to which the VR program is providing services to persons with mental illness. He also discusses the problems that may impede needed changes in the VR program in order to better serve persons with mental illness and presents suggestions for improving services to persons with mental illness that are less dramatic than those proposed in the NAMI report.

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Severe Mental Illness and the Continuing Evolution of the Federal-State Vocational Rehabilitation Program

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