Vocational Rehabilitation Program (Combined or General)

To further develop positive working relationships with Community Rehabilitation Providers (CRPs) and to enhance service delivery for customers, IDVR participates in CRP association meetings.

IDVR is engaged in a structured program evaluation strategy to maintain and improve the quality of services provided to customers through community rehabilitation providers statewide. This strategy is operationalized in a variety of ways:

First, this three-year monitoring cycle begins with an initial accreditation by an outside body to ensure a base level of compliance. IDVR, as needed, works with both recognized accreditation bodies in the State of Idaho, the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF) and the Rehabilitation Services Accreditation System (RSAS) to ensure base standards are being evaluated and to customize additional standards or establish areas of focus when needed. All new CRP providers must be certified and approved by the Chief of Field Services prior to the delivery of services to customers. The Division is currently in the process of evaluating potential changes to improve the CRP monitoring cycle and has recently issued draft guidance to better clarify expectations between CRPs and IDVR.

Second, an initial interview is conducted by the IDVR manager in the region served by the CRP. This interview outlines the expectations of the Division and CRP and introduces these programs to the fiscal and programmatic requirements of the Division, as well as ensuring the Division’s counselors are aware of the CRPs and services provided in their local areas.

Third, IDVR generates annual CRP employment reports for each vendor who provided services in the past fiscal year. The tool provides information to customers in order to enhance informed choice while they are selecting a CRP. These reports contain aggregated input gathered from counselors, customer satisfaction surveys, and CRPs. Information provided includes number of cases served, employment outcomes, average hourly wage of consumers who exit the program successfully, average hours worked per week per consumer, average annual earnings per consumer, employer sponsored benefit rate of those successful closures, the top five occupational outcome categories, and the primary impairments of those served. Counselors provide this information in a manner the consumer can understand to help promote informed choice in response to a 107 finding.

Fourth, monitoring is an ongoing process; however, barring significant issues, site visits are conducted every three years and include a structured review of a sample of cases served by the CRP. If significant issues emerge during the three-year cycle, or during the structured review, a corrective action process is then implemented.

Fifth, IDVR engages in open informal communications with CRPs as needed, but invite CRPs to attend two annual meetings to further enhance collaboration. Likewise, IDVR attends the annual meetings held by the two statewide CRP consortia each year.

Sixth, as a function of its consumer satisfaction survey, IDVR collects information on the satisfaction of consumers who received services from CRPs through an enhanced section of the instrument. IDVR is currently revising its Customer Satisfaction Survey to improve response rates and is considering a revision of items gauging CRP performance.

Finally, IDVR is continuing to evaluate a potential revision of the educational requirements CRPs must engage new staff in before they can serve customers.