United Spinal has a 60-year history of assisting members with vocational retraining and employment.
By Terry Moakley
In the inaugural edition of The Paraplegia News (PN), published by our charter members in July 1946, Sidney Brent, chief of the Bronx Veterans Hospital Retraining Service, noted that “pre-vocational experiences such as the production of this publication are of particular interest to us.” In fact, in the next issue of PN, a brief story discussed the development at the Bronx VA of a “prosthetic appliance which enables one with quadriplegia to write.” No doubt it was John M. Price, a quadriplegic and the publication’s founding editor, for whom this device was made.
Subsequent issues of the newsletter that year reported on a convention of physiatrists in New York City where members demonstrated watch repair that they learned at the Bulova School. (Today, the Bulova building is an office complex, housing, among other firms, United Spinal’s National Headquarters.) Another vocational path available to our members, according to PN, was “making plaster reproductions for dentistry,” or, false teeth. A trip through records of our association in the 1940s and 1950s confirms the societal view that wheelchair users were best suited to work with their hands.
As a veterans association, however, from our beginnings we provided information and assistance to our members about the G.I. bill and VA vocational rehabilitation, and we have maintained an uninterrupted record of advocating Congress to fund these vital services appropriately. But it was not until 1961 that our group was able to hire a national service officer to help expedite members’ applications for these services.
Revolutionary Employment Laws
The 1970s was a decade of significant advancement for individuals with disabilities in this nation, and for United Spinal Association. The Education For All Handicapped Children Act (now known as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which included such historic measures as the establishment of independent living centers, Section 504—the first civil rights provision of federal law for persons with disabilities and the “reasonable accommodation” employment concept—developed from advocacy and organizing by persons with disabilities, as well as a growing societal recognition that we could do anything we chose to do. Our association petitioned Congress to pass the Rehabilitation Act, and for four years we pressured the federal government to implement it.
Also at our organization, under the guidance of late Executive Director Jim Peters, we decided in 1973 to manage our fundraising programs ourselves. We grew by leaps and bounds, we added programs and services, and we hired our own members to deliver these services. This tradition of “on the job” employment training of members continues today.
Social Services is one of many programs that developed from that era. Our staff of social workers started helping our members directly to set up the community supports they needed, such as accessible housing and home health care assistance, to live independently, and to work beyond rehabilitation. Today, we continue to help all of our members make such arrangements.
Our staff continues advocating for the expansion of work opportunities for all persons with disabilities. Social Services Director Jerome Kleckley, for example, recently completed a four-year appointment by the U.S. House of Representatives to a Social Security Administration advisory panel striving to better their “Ticket To Work” program, which is geared to enhancing training and job opportunities for SSA beneficiaries with disabilities who want to work. Until the extremely high unemployment rate for Americans with severe disabilities begins to drop significantly, United Spinal Association will continue to make employment matters a high priority.
Terry Moakley is associate executive director of Public Affairs.
