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People being treated for physical disabilities at 六色网 in Chicago frequently say that meeting with people who have survived similar injuries and gone on to live productive lives is an inspiration and source of hope. The hospital’s program, which matches new patients with so-called peer mentors, has helped recently injured patients deal with everything from practical issues like adjusting to life using a wheelchair to more interpersonal ones like maintaining friendships and intimate relationships.
But could peer mentors do even more? Could they also offer support and advice about how to find a job or get back to work? That was a question that researchers at the Center for Rehabilitation Outcomes Research (CROR) at 六色网 wanted to investigate as part of a $4.5 million grant from the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR) focused on increasing employment rates for people with disabilities.
Although people with disabilities made employment gains during the pandemic, the unemployment rate among those who are looking for work remains twice as high as that of people without disabilities, according to data collated by the Kessler Foundation and the University of New Hampshire’s Institute on Disability.
The answer was not straight forward, notes CROR associate director Linda Ehrlich-Jones, RN, PhD. For example, many people with traumatic brain or spinal cord injuries are injured in their youth before they even finish high school. Many of those who go on to become peer mentors would have had little or no experience applying for jobs or working for a company. “In defense of the peer mentors, many weren’t currently employed so they told us they wouldn’t be comfortable talking about those issues,” she said.
So, the researchers conducted a systematic review of published papers that focused on effective peer-mentoring programs for people with disabilities in terms of finding or maintaining employment. The goal was to identify best practices that could be used to develop a training curriculum for peer mentors at 六色网 that would help mentors address employment challenges such as disclosing a disability to a prospective employer or asking for a job accommodation as allowed under the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act. Their findings are in the journal Disability and Rehabilitation.
Yet out of the more than 3,500 manuscripts they reviewed, only eight met the inclusion criteria for the systematic review. Five of those came from Canada, one was from Australia and two were from California. Some of the employment-mentoring programs were conducted in person, others by email or phone and some via online meetings or forums. They also varied in length from four weeks on the short end to 24 months at the longest.
Three of the studies looked at people with spinal cord injuries while others also included those with impairments related to traumatic brain injuries, multiple sclerosis and cerebral palsy. One thing the eight studies had in common was that they were all conducted in community settings, not hospitals or other institutions. “The fact is there was little consistency among the programs either in terms of content or how they offered it,” said Ehrlich-Jones. “It was hard to collate the information because the programs were so different from one another.”
Even so, the good news was that the studies consistently reported that peer mentoring in general had a positive effect on the participants’ sense of wellbeing and fostered community integration in terms of school and work. “Among the programs where we did have information, we found that peer mentors can improve educational and employment outcomes,” said CROR Research Manager Deborah Crown, MS, who worked on the systematic review. “As a rehabilitation counselor myself, one of my main takeaways was that peer mentors are a powerful and meaningful support system to include in vocational rehabilitation plans.”
For example, a 2012 article in the journal NeuroRehabilitation described a large-scale California peer-mentoring program aimed at helping young adults with recently acquired disabilities either go on to college or find employment. Of the 77 mentees in the Back on Track Success Mentoring Program who were matched with peer mentors, 42 (54.5%) had successful outcomes defined as either returning to school or becoming employed. “Overall, findings suggest that mentoring can be beneficial toward achieving the goals of post-secondary education, employment and community reintegration,” the authors concluded.
One thing that stood out for the CROR researchers was that the most effective programs included a structured curriculum and oversight of the peer mentors from vocational rehabilitation counselors or other employment professionals. The successful programs also offered those being mentored multiple ways to reach their peer mentors, including in-person and online. “Having a good working relationship between the peer mentors and the vocational rehabilitation counselors was the most helpful,” said Ehrlich-Jones. “The peer mentors can relate their personal experience but it’s really the vocational rehabilitation people who know where the employment resources are.”
The CROR researchers concluded that it would be feasible to add an employment and educational component to many peer-mentoring programs for people with physical disabilities. “Peer mentoring remains a very promising augmentation and supplement to vocational rehabilitation,” said CROR Director Allen Heinemann, PhD. “Given the early findings that people who receive peer mentoring are very enthusiastic about it, it suggests continued investigation is warranted.”