Procedures used to identify and measure benefits and costs of supported employment provision

Abstract

Supported employment consists of an array of services and is one of many service venues available to individuals with disabilities. Analyses of costs and benefits provide valuable evidence with regard to the economic feasibility of alternative programs and assist with the decisions of which of these programs to expand, reduce, or discontinue. Human service providers must also be accountable to the recipients of their services, and have an obligation to ensure that individuals with disabilities and their families benefit from service participation. These seemingly incongruent perspectives, the participant's perspective, the provider's perspective, the taxpayer's perspective and the perspective of society in general, may be addressed individually, or addressed concurrently in an effort to fulfill all obligations of service provision. Likewise, cost analyses may be used to compare supported employment services to other service venues, or they may be used within the supported employment venue to compare cost efficiency of various supported employment services. This article is a review of the procedures used in benefit-cost analyses of supported employment provision, with emphasis upon the purposes of various analyses.