Outside View: Job training a bad idea

The following editorial appeared Sunday in the Tri-City Herald.

Sometimes ideas are more helpful in theory than in practice.

Unfortunately, a new state program designed to give disabled adults job skills just might end up fitting that description.

The Working Age Adult Policy went into effect July 1 and means a big change for a number of disabled adults in Benton and Franklin counties who are used to getting together every day. Instead of gathering for games and outings, they will be given job training in the hope they can find work.

It’s a shame one service had to be sacrificed for the other.

The Arc of the Tri-Cities has offered socialization for disabled adults through its Community Access Program with much success. But now those get-togethers will be turned into individualized job training sessions. Only adults 62 and older will be allowed to continue gathering for only social reasons.

The goal of the new state program is to have everyone who is developmentally disabled, mentally or physically, at least try to learn job skills. Linda Rolfe, director of the state Division of Developmental Disabilities in Olympia, said she believes jobs can be engineered for people with disabilities and, while some exceptions may be made, the expectation is that all disabled people can have a job.

While that’s a commendable belief, the reality is some people have disabilities so severe there is no way they ever will be hired. Many of their parents know this and spoke against the proposal at a recent informational meeting held at the Arc of Tri-Cities.

Paul Reynolds, a regional administrator for the state’s Division for Developmentally Disabled, told the group of parents the job skills training was a “value statement” about developmentally disabled people and a way to view them as more than “just someone to take care of.”

Since when did someone have to be employable to be valuable?

Besides, Benton and Franklin counties already have agencies that help disabled adults find work.

Columbia Industries, for example, has a long history in the Tri-Cities of training disabled adults and helping them get jobs. Last year the agency successfully placed eight of 76 on-site clients in jobs in the community, which is considered a huge success.

Many of the disabled adults who have been in the Community Access Program are more severely disabled than those at Columbia Industries. Just think of the struggles they face as they try to prepare for a job.

If state officials wanted to make a change to the system they should have asked for volunteers and experimented with a small group first. That way those disabled adults who wanted to continue with the social and recreational programs would still have access to them.

Now parents have been put in the position of either keeping their children home or placing them in a program to learn skills for jobs they don’t believe their children could ever get.

It’s not an easy decision, and it’s a shame parents have to make that choice.