Job coach factors associated with community-based employment service programme outcome measures for people with disabilities – a Taiwan case study

Abstract

Purpose. The aim of this study is to explore whether/which job coach factors were significantly associated with the community-based employment service (CBES) programme outcome measures in Taiwan.

Method. This study used the 2003–2005 CBES programme for People with Disabilities Database in Taipei City in Taiwan (n = 3924) to do a secondary data analysis using hierarchical multiple linear regression.

Results. This study found that ‘occurrences of the services provided by the job coaches’ variable was definitely the dominant predictor and explained additional 19.6% and 27.8% of the variances of annual salary and annual working month outcome measures, respectively. In addition, among six composition variables of ‘occurrences of the services provided by the job coaches’, ‘occurrences of follow-up guidance’, ‘occurrences of intensive guidance’, and ‘occurrences of consultation before interviews with employer/director of human resources’ were more powerful than the other three in predicting outcomes.

Conclusions. Job coach factors in this study were significantly correlated with CBES programme outcome measures for people with disabilities in Taiwan after controlling for the socio-demographic variables. It indicates that the more inputs in the people with disabilities made by job coaches equates to better outcomes in this Taiwan case study.

Keywords:

• Community-based employment service
• supported employment service
• competitive employment service
• job coach
• people with disabilities

Acknowledgements

The author is most grateful to the sponsorship and data provided by the Bureau of Labour Affairs, Taipei City Government, Taiwan. The author also would like to acknowledge the International Conference on the Social Policy in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Mainland China for providing the opportunity to present a draft of this paper at Chinese University, Hong Kong on 7–8 July 2006. In addition, the author extends gratitude to his English language editor, Orrin Hoopman of Hualien, Taiwan.