| Vocational rehabilitation services are designed to build human and social capital for persons with disabilities who have the goal of competitive employment. Human capital refers to education and training services. Social capital refers to services that connect job seekers to employers such as networking with hiring personnel. This research examined the influence of human and social capital services on competitive employment for persons who are blind. The participants were persons who are legally blind and received vocational rehabilitation services in 2007. The Case Services Report-RSA 911 Database was used for these analyses. These persons were separated into two groups, persons who are congenitally blind and adventitiously blind. Service patterns were examined to determine which services were provided more often than others. Demographic variables of age at application, gender, race/ethnicity, employment status at application and each human and social capital service was examined on competitive employment and blindness category. The human capital services that were examined in the current research were education services, on-the-job training, job readiness training and disability augmentative skills training. The social capital vocational rehabilitation services that were also examined were job search assistance and job placement. The current research strengthened our knowledge of human capital theory and social capital theory by confirming that education services, on-the-job training, job readiness training, disability augmentative skills training, job search assistance and job placement was associated with competitive employment for persons who are blind. Directions for future research were also given. |
