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The bureaucratic entity formerly known as the 'Unemployment Office' has been re-engineered and renamed the 'One-Stop Career Center' and is designed to provide all Americans with a 'seamless' continuum of employment and training services delivered by state, county and local employment and training providers. However, there is a significant gap between the 'vision' and the 'actual practice' of these so called 'One-Stop Centers'. This paper describes the results of a customer service training intervention designed to enhance services for persons with disabilities entering the One-Stop System. A total of 44 subjects participated in this study, half of which were persons with severe disabilities. The results indicate that while services for persons with disabilities were somewhat improved following staff training, overall customer satisfaction remains low. Employment and training outcomes at 3-months were significantly poorer for persons with disabilities compared to persons without disabilities. Policy and research implications are discussed.
The Workforce Investment Act of 1998 (WIA) mandated a comprehensive reform of Federal job training programs (Public Law: 105-220, 29 USC 2801). WIA legislation created partnerships between the State Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) system, the State Employment Service (ES), the State Unemployment Insurance service (UI), and county-run employment and training services previously funded under the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA). The new bureaucratic entity developed by WIA, referred to as the One-Stop System' is intended to provide all Americans with a 'seamless' continuum of employment and training services delivered by state, county and local employment and training providers.
Despite the WIA 'vision' of a unified system of employment and training services, Government audits and other independent evaluations consistently report that most One-Stops continue to provide fragmented, stand-alone services, even in situations where partners are co-located (Berkowitz & Rosa, 2002). Thus, the much heralded, customer-friendly, consumer-driven One-Stop Center environment called for by WIA has yet to materialize for most Americans. To facilitate the systems change and organizational re-engineering mandated by WIA, the United States Department of Labor and other funding sources are providing demonstration and system change grants to One-Stop Systems throughout the country in an attempt to rectify existing deficiencies (Department of Labor-ETA Federal Register Notice, Work Incentive Grant, 5/25/2000). Funding to enhance services for persons with disabilities within the One-Stop System is a high priority (DOL-ODEP,...