Self-Employment Policies Changes Through the Decade

45 state vocational rehabilitation (VR) agencies ’ policies and procedures regarding self-employment for people with disabilities. Based on this analysis, researchers developed and broadly disseminated a model VR self-employment policy. In 2002, RTC: Rural investigated state policies again to see how they had changed. This article reports the results of that investigation. Overall, current policies are much more positive toward self-employment than previous ones. The number of model policy compo-nents addressed has increased from an average of 3.7 components to an average of 6.6 components. Many agencies have developed self-employment programs and published manuals specifically for counselors. The article concludes with policy recommendations and suggests areas for future research. ness Opportunities (Region VI Rehabilitation Continuing Ed-ucation Center, 1998). Influential practitioners included VR agencies in Iowa, Ohio, and Wisconsin, which approached self-employment by combining VR resources with state development agencies or by developing specialized self-employment programs. Working within systems, individuals and community ser