N.Y. Education Law § 1004-a: Sheltered workshops for individuals with developmental disabilities, mental illness or a severe physical handicap

§ 1004-a. Sheltered workshops for individuals with developmental

disabilities, mental illness or a severe physical handicap. 1.

Declaration of purpose. The conditions associated with a developmental

disability, mental illness and severe physical handicap are such that

many young people, after laborious training in the schools and

otherwise, reach the point in their lives where they can and should,

under proper and continued guidance, engage in sheltered employment. The

effects of such employment are salutary in many ways. The affected

individual is helped to become a contributing member of society. The

state is saved the expense of his or her institutionalization in already

overcrowded state schools and facilities. The family retains closer

contact with him or her and is spared the anxieties naturally attaching

to separation and institutionalization. All of these factors have also

been shown to reflect tangible benefit upon individuals with

developmental disabilities, mental illness or a severe physical handicap

in improving his or her overall condition. The purpose of this measure

is to specifically encourage the development, improvement and expansion

of such sheltered employment facilities by non-profit agencies, so that

the salutary effects mentioned can be expediently accomplished.

2. Special provisions relating to individuals with a developmental

disabilities, mental illness or a severe physical handicap in extended

sheltered employment in workshops. Notwithstanding any other provision

of this article, when it shall appear to the satisfaction of the

department that an individual with a developmental disability, mental

illness or a severe physical handicap over the chronological age of

seventeen years can reasonably be expected to benefit from, or in his or

her best interests reasonably requires extended sheltered employment in

a workshop as defined in subdivision eight of section ten hundred two of

this article, furnished by an approved non-profit organization, the

department is authorized to contract with such organization for the

furnishing of such sheltered employment to such individual with a

developmental disability, mental illness or a severe physical handicap;

and the department is further authorized to expend for such purpose a

sum or sums not less than one thousand five hundred dollars per annum

for each such individual with a developmental disability, mental illness

or a severe physical handicap, for or towards the cost of providing such

sheltered employment for each such individual with a developmental

disability, mental illness or a severe physical handicap.

The department shall pay at least quarterly during the state fiscal

year such sums as are authorized to such organizations for such

sheltered employment immediately upon the completion of evaluation and

personal adjustment services under the sponsorship of the department.

3. The department shall maintain a register of such nonprofit

organizations which, after inspection of the facilities for sheltered

employment provided by them, it deems qualified to meet the needs of

such individuals with developmental disabilities, mental illness or a

severe physical handicap. Such inspection shall also determine the

eligibility of such organization to receive the funds hereinbefore

specified.

4. The department is authorized to contract with such nonprofit

organizations for the provision of vocational rehabilitation services

which lead to sheltered employment.

5. The department shall assure that individuals in long-term sheltered

employment operated by not-for-profit agencies are periodically reviewed

to determine the feasibility of their employment, or training for

employment, in integrated work settings and that maximum efforts toward

such employment occur, whenever it is determined to be feasible.

6. The commissioner is authorized to promulgate such reasonable rules

and regulations as he may deem necessary or proper to carry out the

provisions of this section.