Vocational Rehabilitation

With the passage of the First Step Act, the BOP has been tasked with focusing on reentry initiatives, including needs assessments and correlated programming, to aid inmates in transitioning successfully into their communities. A key to successful inmate reintegration is employment. Employment leads to financial stability which in turn leads to procuring housing and essential resources, as well as having more choices and opportunities. It allows people to establish, maintain, and expand a network of positive peers and contacts, and it increases self-esteem, self-worth, and personal growth. All of these benefits in turn can lead to the creation and growth of protective factors against recidivism, criminal behavior, and re-arrest. Research suggests that providing programs such as vocational rehabilitation can play a large role in assisting inmates find and maintain employment. Inmates with disabilities stand to benefit the most from such a program as they face more obstacles than other inmates regarding reintegration and employment. Such inmates include those with physical and cognitive disabilities and mental illness, and often there is a high rate of comorbidity in this population. There is a need to create a vocational rehabilitation program to assist these inmates, and based on the complexity of such a program, a study will first be required to ensure its success. Vocational rehabilitation programs for individuals with disabilities have several components. Progress within these programs consists of several steps, such as identification of potential individuals who require such services, further assessment to provide potential diagnoses and inform individualized treatment and vocational training plans, provision of training and education to prepare for employment, and provision of accommodations and support at an employment site. An appropriate first step in creating a program within the BOP is creating and establishing an appropriate screener to identify inmates, the severity of their disabilities, and potential vocational areas of concern. Screeners available in the community may not be reliably utilized with inmates in correctional environments due to lack of potential generalizability and applicability. Therefore, a screener must be created which takes into account the correctional environment and its impact on adaptive functioning and its measurement. The scope of work for this contract will require the Contractor to develop a screener or screeners , or brief and narrowly focused psychological test or tests, with the following goals: 1) identify current inmates in BOP institutions who have disabilities associated with physical, cognitive, and mental health impairments; 2) determine the severity, in terms of vocational and independent living impacts, of those disabilities towards the identification of need for further psychological assessment and/or accommodations; 3) identify vocational rehabilitation services, either required or recommended for inmates, to maximize benefit of services and efficiency of service provision. The Contractor will be responsible for validating the screener or screeners using samples from the inmate population as well as from the community to ensure good reliability and validity. During the development process, the Contractor will consult with BOP staff as needed. The Contractor will be responsible for creating informational and training materials for staff and inmates regarding disabilities, their impact on functioning in a correctional setting, and the utility of the developing screener or screeners. The Contractor will also develop a broad vocational rehabilitation curriculum that can meet the needs of enrolled inmates, and identify and provide models and guidance for job training modules.