A follow-up study of client satisfaction with vocational rehabilitation services

The purpose of this thesis encompassed two objectives. The first was to present a follow-up study of client satisfaction of service, e.g. halfway house placement, vocational training, job placement, surgical services, physical and-or mental therapy, and counseling and guidance, that the client received. The second objective was to find out whether or not satisfaction or dissatisfaction differed with the type of disability group. The methods used in this study were: (1) the collection of data regarding the client’s name, age, social security number, counselor’s number, and region; (2) the sorting of this information by closure status, region, and counselor number; (3) the random selection of the sample, which was limited to those clients who were successfully rehabilitated in the Fiscal Year of 1975; (4) mailing a questionnaire to each client in the sample; (5) determining, from the responses, the numbers and percents of clients who were either satisfied or dissatisfied with each service area and determining the numbers and percents of client who did not receive each service; (6) conducting an analysis to determine if there were any differences among the individual disability groups, as well as among the individual disability categories, with regards to their satisfaction or dissatisfaction of each service area. Findings:

1. This study indicates that clients revealed a higher percentage of satisfaction than dissatisfaction in all service areas.
2. Satisfaction did differ according to the type of disability group with regard to the service of halfway house placement.
3. Satisfaction did not differ according to disability group with regard to the kind of vocational training, benefits from training, results of surgical services, physical and/or mental therapy, job placement and counseling and guidance.
4. Over one-half of the respondents indicated that they did not receive the service of job placement, which is a mandatory service provided by the Texas Rehabilitation Commission.
5. Approximately one-third of the respondents indicated not receiving counseling and guidance, which is an essential service, in their rehabilitation program.