Investigating the institutional relations and structural ... · underpinning the hindrances and barriers to employment experienced by disabled individuals in Romania ... oriented

E-QUAL - Qualitative Research on Professional Integration of Vulnerable Categories, contract no. 13SEE/ 30.06.2014 Financed by the Economic European Area Financial Mechanism 2009-2014 - „Research within Priority Sectors”

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Supported by a grant from Iceland, Liechenstein and Norway

Investigating the institutional relations and structural mechanisms

underpinning the hindrances and barriers to employment experienced by

disabled individuals in Romania

Report Coordinator: Assoc. Prof. Teodor Mircea ALEXIU, PhD Authors:

Teodor Mircea ALEXIU, West University of Timisoara, Romania

Elena Loreni BACIU, West University of Timisoara, Romania

Johans SANDVIN TVEIT, University of Nordland, Norway

Ingrid FYLLING, University of Nordland, Norway

Janne BREIMO PAULSEN, University of Nordland, Norway

Andreea Georgiana Bîrneanu, West University of Timisoara, Romania

Theofild Andrei LAZĂR, West University of Timisoara, Romania

Melinda DINCĂ, West University of Timisoara, Romania

Irina ZAMFIRESCU, University of București, Romania

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

This report is a result of the project “E-QUAL – Qualitative research on the professional integration of vulnerable groups”. The research leading to these results has received funding from EEA Financial Mechanism 2009-2014 under the project contract number SEE13/30.06.2014. The project is implemented by the West University of Timișoara, Romania in partnership with the Nordland University, Bodø, Norway.

2015

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1. Introduction 2. Methodology of the research

1. Using Institutional ethnography (IE) as research method for investigating institutional world

2. Using IE in investigating and understanding social institutions and social relations

3. Research objectives and research questions 4. Data Collection for Investigating an Institutional World 4.1. Key Informants Interviews-institutional discourse 4.1.1. Texts (documents) as data for investigating ruling apparatus

5. Research sample

6. Ways of speaking and discourse: the textual character of ruling

apparatus.

7. Directions of research

8. Ethical issues

3. Policies and services addressed to increasing employment of disabled persons in

Romania – the institutional perspective

1. Introduction – some clarifications on the lack of clear and centralized

definition of the concept of disability in Romania, in accordance with the

use of the term in EU

2. The assessment process for releasing the handicap certificate

3. The relevant institutions and approaches in addressing employment

among disabled persons

3.1. Romanian PES – Public Employment System

3.2. Other service providers in involved in increasing employment

3.3. Approaches used by the two types of service providers for tackling

unemployment and increasing employment

1.3.1. The underlying (social) problem approach

1.3.2. The perceived needs approach 4. The role of the programs and measures designed to encourage employers hire disabled

persons 4.1. Schemes of support and financial incentives for employers of

vulnerable categories 4.2. The quota system 4.3. The “ability” or “fitness” of disabled persons in facing the job

requirements – the general and universal use of medical perspective in Romanian culture

4.4. The focus on benefits – a major hindrance in the employment of disabled persons

4.5. Conclusions - The system of protection and support for the disabled persons – A structure governed by fragmentation and parallelism

5. Education for special needs students. The dilemma between segregated or inclusive

school.

5.1. Barriers in admission of the disabled students in mainstream schools

(at all levels). Where are they coming from?

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5.2. Education for special educational needs students

5.3. Competitiveness perspective: schools like enterprises are competition

oriented and disabled students cannot play their role

5.4. Education for citizenship?

5.4.1. Good practices examples

5.5. Conclusions:

6. References

7. Appendix

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Investigating the institutional relations and structural mechanisms underpinning the

hindrances and barriers to employment experienced by disabled individuals

1. Introduction

1.1. Background for the current research report

The current report was elaborated within the E-QUAL – Qualitative Research on Professional Integration of Vulnerable Categories project, financed through the EEA Financial Mechanism 2009-2014, under contract no. 13SEE/30.06.2014.

The project aims to provide a viable research documented foundation for the current policies and programs addressed to professional integration of vulnerable categories, the final purpose being to facilitate positive changes in the processes of integration of vulnerable groups into the labour market.

The project is implemented through a partnership between two public accredited universities: West University of Timisoara, from Timisoara, Romania and University of Nordland, from Bodø, Norway. The research was conducted in Romania, but the analysis and interpretation of results was completed in Romanian-Norwegian collaboration. This approach allowed the transfer of knowledge, methods and know-how between the two countries. The project targets two specific vulnerable groups: disabled individuals and Roma population.

The implementation of the action started with a comprehensive review of the existing scientific knowledge and datasets about the access on the labour market of disabled and Roma persons. In order to conduct the two analyses, the consortium used as sources the databases of the European and national authorities, institutions and organizations which design and implement the policies addressed to disabled and Roma. The first phase of the research was closed with the elaboration of two research reports, which presented the results of review:

- The labor market integration of people with disabilities In Europe and Romania: Literature and policy review report;

- The compatibility between the current European and Romanian National framework of labour market integration of Roma. The two reports can be found in extended downloadable format from the project’s web-

site, at www.e-qual-see.ro, Research reports section. Following the method of inquiry named Institutional Ethnography, the second stage of our

research investigated the everyday experiences of vulnerable populations approaching the labour market. This stage of the research was closed with the elaboration of two research reports, which presented the results regarding the labour market integration of disabled persons. In parallel, a second report, regarding the labour market integration of Roma persons, was also released, presenting the results obtained from the investigation of the experiences of Roma persons approaching the labour market:

-Mapping the hindrances and barriers to employment as experienced by vulnerable populations. Experiences of the disabled persons on the Romanian labour market.

-Roma Citizens Labor Market Integration. The two reports can be found in extended downloadable format from the project’s web-

site, at www.e-qual-see.ro, Research reports section.

http://www.e-qual-see.ro/

http://www.e-qual-see.ro/

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Directed by the information gained from the vulnerable group representatives, the research investigation shifted into professional and organizational work sites. Following the same method of inquiry named Institutional Ethnography, that we used it in the second stage of our research, the current study investigated how the everyday experiences of Roma and disabled individuals are connected to institutional relations set. In achieving our goal, key representatives of public and private institutions (ONG's) that provide services for people facing difficulties in their relation to the labour market, local employment offices, local authorities, medical, school, spokesman’s, social services and employers represented the subjects of the current study; interviews with representatives of those institutions, as well as, written documents (text) provided the data material for current phase of research. The objective was to identify the institutional perspective regard the difficulties experienced by disabled/Roma individuals on the labor market.

The current report presents the results obtained following the investigation of professionals with different work backgrounds in order to detect the institutional relations and structural mechanisms underpinning the hindrances and barriers to employment experienced by disabled individuals. In parallel, a second report was also released, presenting the results obtained from professional and organizational work sites regard to the hindrances and barriers to employment experienced by disabled persons.

Building on these activities, a further analysis will be focused on identifying successful interventions addressed to socio-professional integration of disabled and Roma and analysing the factors that generate the potential for success in these interventions.

The interviews with key informants for the current report were conducted starting from May 2015 until June 2015. Between July-September 2015, a subsequent encoding and interpreting phase followed. The current report presents the findings of this research phase and was released in October 2015.

The findings of this report will provide a point of departure for further investigations in the framework of the current research. Based on the main purpose of the project, the next step aims at integrating the results of the research in the current policies and methodologies used in this field. In order to ensure an effective transfer of knowledge towards practice, we have chosen to collaborate with six main target groups: policy-makers, practitioners and academics through trainings, publications and informative sessions.

1.2. Themes and topics covered by the current research report

The research activities whose results are presented in the current report were dedicated to investigating the institutional relations and structural mechanisms underpinning the hindrances and barriers to employment experienced by disabled individuals.

Interviews with key representatives of public/private institutions, social services, local/national authority officials, spokesman’s, policies makers, as well as, written documents (text) provided the data material for this report.

Interviews discussions focused on one hand on the work and effort made by professionals in order to facilitate the employment and educational integration of disabled and on the other hand aimed to explore the strengths and the weaknesses of the public/private institutions (NGO's) offering services to disabled individuals being focused on procedures, processes, solutions and related dysfunction detected: (1) eligibility of the beneficiaries; (2) assessment of the beneficiaries needs; (3) detailed description of services; (4) unemployed protection/ unemployment benefits; (5) education role; (6) intervention plan; (7) how intervention is adapted to the identified needs of the beneficiaries; (8) network of collaborators; (9) running intervention- who does what?; (10) who monitors the intervention and how?; (11) evaluation of intervention results; (12) criteria for success or failure; (13) asking for and/or receiving assistance; (14) strategies/procedures for supporting the employment/staying in employment; (15) strategies for supporting educational

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attainment; (16) education: institutional access and completion of study programs; (17) policies, strategy, legislation, programs to prevent labor exclusion; (18) factors that hamper the employment of vulnerable groups; (19) disabled policies structure; (20) everyday aspects of the informant work; (21) the process of recruitment; (22) how the text (documents) organize the delivery of services and the interaction with beneficiaries; (23) institutional forms of power; (24) how they interpret documents; (25) how the institution mediate beneficiaries interactions on the labor market; (26) economic considerations; (27) efficiency of the institutions/services ; (28) difficulties in recruitment of disabled individuals; (29) occupational medicine; (30) qualified personnel resources; (31) existing databases; (32) the impact of quota system; (33) labor protection rules; (34) discrimination situations; (35) general education/special education.

The interviews and analyses of the interviews conducted with the representatives of the institutions and organizations who provide services for people facing difficulties in their relation to the labour market were aimed to investigate their perspective about how work (in a broad sense) and how work processes are coordinated by texts and discourses. The aim of this part of the study was to extend ethnography from people’s experiences, and accounts of their experiences, into the work processes of institutions and institutional action (Turner, 2006: 139).

Texts are generously understood as “material in a form that enables replication of what is written, drawn or otherwise reproduced” (Smith 2005:228). The investigation of textually-mediated social organization is central in IE and explicates how practices and procedures are used in the daily routines of institutional work.

The aim was also to map institutional relations and linkages underpinning these factors and mechanisms, based on the analysis of the informants’ testimonials. The research objective guiding the research team during this phase of the investigation was:

1. Mapping the institutional relations and structural mechanisms underpinning the hindrances and barriers to employment as experienced by disabled individuals.

The sub-ordinated research questions focused on: 1. What are the institutional dysfunctions underpinning the hindrances and barriers to

employment experienced by disabled individuals? 2. What are the structural obstacles impeding the inclusion of the disabled individuals in the

labor market? 3. What are the structural obstacles impeding the disabled individuals access/completion

their education?

1.3. Overview of the research report

The report is organized in 5 main chapters: The first chapter – Introduction – presents the main information needed by the reader, in

order to understand the report and place its interpretation in the correct context: background of the study, themes and topics explored, content and structure of the report.

The second chapter – Methodology of the research – details methodological aspects regarding the design and implementation of the research, from planning to interpretation of the results. Aspects regarding the compatibility of the research method used (Institutional Ethnography) and the research topics explored are presented. Explanations regarding the size and structure of the research sample are also provided.

The third chapter – Policies and services addressed to increasing employment of disabled persons in Romania – the institutional perspective – focuses mainly on describing the institutional process (understood in a broad sense) that intersect and shape the status of the disabled on the labor market, as understood and perceived by representatives of the public and private institutions. This chapter also presents the results of the interviews analysis regarding the

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institutional relations and structural mechanisms underpinning the hindrances and barriers to employment as experienced by disabled individuals. The main findings are presented sequentially, for each phase of the process. The perspective of the main actors (legislation, public institutions, private organizations and employers) are presented and interpreted.

The fourth chapter –Education for special needs students. The dilemma between segregated or inclusive school– presents the results of the interviews’ analysis regarding the

obstacles experienced by the disabled students during the process of school enrolling and discrimination aspects through the eye of the all level mainstream and special schools representatives.

The fifth chapter – Conclusions of the report – synthesizes the main findings of the report, discussing the institutional relations and structural mechanisms underpinning the hindrances and barriers to employment, as experienced by disabled persons, and defines the main “problematics” identified at this stage of the research. Based on these findings, we further map the institutional relations and structural mechanisms hindrances underpinning the hindrances and barriers to employment as experienced by disabled persons.

1.4. Use of the current research report

Based on the problematics revealed from the experiences of disabled and Roma

individuals in the second stage of our research, the current interview testimonials of the

institutions/organizations representatives help us to identify the problematic (blocking) role of the

institutions and texts in the inclusion on the labor market of our vulnerable target groups

(disabled/Roma). This phase was an essential step in our research, because it provided a

systemic understanding of the institutional dysfunctions confronted by the disabled persons in

searching for and accessing employment also help us map the problematic institutional relations

and structural mechanisms underpinning the hindrances and barriers to employment by

vulnerable populations.

Building on the current findings, we will continue our investigation with a further analysis

on identifying successful interventions addressed to socio-professional integration of disabled and

Roma and analyzing the factors that generate the potential for success in these interventions.

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2. Methodology of the research 2.1. Using Institutional ethnography (IE) as research method for investigating

institutional world

Diamond (2006: 46-47) explain that: "in IE one isn’t able to predict what one is going to do, including what questions one will ask, and therefore, one cannot predict in advance what one will find out.

In IE/PAE, the term “social relations” functions as a research apparatus for situating and investigating the social nature of people’s doings in and across time, space, and particular situations (Smith, 1990).

According to Smith (1987) the goal of institutional ethnography is to move from the actual relations toward the relations of the ruling, so that the power of the institutions can be discovered.

In contemporary global capitalist society, the “everyday world” (the material context of each embodied subject) is organized in powerful ways by trans local social relations that pass through local settings and shape them according to a dynamic of transformation that begins and gathers speed somewhere else (Smith, 2005). Smith refers to these Trans local social relations that carry and accomplish organization and control as “relations of ruling”: They are those forms that we know as bureaucracy, administration, management, professional organization and the media.

They include also the complex of discourses, scientific, technical and cultural, that intersect, interpenetrate and coordinate the multiple sites of ruling (Smith, 2005: 6). The discovery of the text as a significant constituent of social relations must be credited to ethnomethodology. A central feature of ruling practice in contemporary society is its reliance on text-based discourses and forms of knowledge, and these are central in institutional ethnography (De Vault, McCoy, 2006).

Smith’s (1999: 49) definition of ruling as “discursive, managerial, and professional” and the material world of surveillance processes organized by forms of writing, inscribing, reading, and interpreting information.

Institutional ethnography is driven by the search to discover “how it happens,” with the underlying assumptions that (a) social “happening” consists in the concerted activities of people and (b) in contemporary society, local practices and experiences are tied into extended social relations or chains of action, many which are mediated by documentary forms of knowledge. Institutional ethnographic researches set out to provide analytic descriptions of such processes in actual settings.

The investigation of texts as constituents of social relations offers access to the ontological ground of institutional processes which organize, govern, and regulate the kind of society in which we live, for these are to a significant degree forms of social action discourse, objective forms of management, are in various ways dependent upon textual communications, increasingly, of course, in the form of computer print-outs of video displays, but textual none the less (Smith, 2005a: 121-122).

Many institutional ethnographers use individual and group interviews. The distinctiveness of institutional ethnographic interviews is produced by the researcher’s developing knowledge of institutional processes, which allows a kind of listening and probing oriented toward institutional connections. Smith explains “The important thing is to think organizationally recognizing you won’t know at the beginning which threads to follow, knowing you won’t follow all possible threads, but noting them along the way” (Smith, 2005).

DeVault and McCoy (2006) explains: "In IE, talking with people is meant to open doors into the ruling relations and how the local hooks into translocal governing and bureaucratic processes, rather than windows into participants’ inner experience".

As institutional ethnography is fundamentally an analytic project, the activity of the researcher is not concluded at the moment when the tape recorder is turned off and he or she

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packs up the notes, but rather it begins at this point. Institutional ethnographers tend not to use formal analytic strategies such as interpretative coding. Dorothy Smith explains: “You don’t have use the whole interview. You can be quite selective, because you’re not interested in all aspects of the institutional process” (De Vault, McCoy, 2006)”.

2.2. Using IE in investigating and understanding social institutions and social relations

Institutional ethnography, like other forms of ethnography, relies on interviewing, observation and documents as data. Institutional ethnography departs from other ethnographic approaches by treating those data not as the topic or object of interest, but as “entry” into the social relations of the setting. The idea is to tap into people’s expertise in the conduct of their everyday lives – their “work”. The conceptual framing of everyday experiences heard or read about, or observed, constitutes one of distinctive features of an institutional ethnography. Another is its political nature.

Exploring how people’s lives are bound up in ruling relations that tie individuals into institutional action arising outside their knowing, “institutional ethnography allows one to disclose (to the people studied) how matters come about as they do in their experience and to provide methods of making their working experience accountable to themselves…rather than to the ruling apparatus of which institutions are part” (Smith, 2005).

Using IE as method, the following strategies and approaches were used to address the key research questions and explore the informants work and professional knowledge.

The experiences of disabled individuals approaching the labor market have provided the starting point of the present study, which focused investigating the institutional relations and structural mechanisms underpinning the hindrances and barriers to employment.

Furthermore, institutions and organizations who provide social services for people facing difficulties in their relation to the labor market, (teachers, medical representatives, spokesman’s, policy makers, local employment offices, local authorities, employers and documents (texts) as data), drawn the current study. By approaching the institutions, organizations, employers and professionals our study aims at investigating how the problematic features and mechanisms revealed by the disabled and Roma individuals in the second report are produced and maintained.

Semi-structured interviews with the key representatives of public and private institutions, both at local and national level have provided the point of departure for our current study. Interviews conversations with representatives from the selected 6 systems involved in offering services to vulnerable populations have been focused on how practices are organized, professional knowledge, attitudes, professional ideologies, norms, values, moral codes, methods, procedures, institutional structures, rules and regulations and everyday aspects of the key informants work, all with the attempt to brought to light the difficulties and challenges on the labour market experienced by disabled individuals in the previous research report.

The objective was to investigate how work (in a broad sense) and work processes are coordinated by texts and discourses and how institutional ruling relations intervene with or form the Roma individuals everyday experiences of approaching the labor market. The question was whether there are any structural obstacles impeding the inclusion of these vulnerable groups in the labor market.

By mapping the flow and understanding of texts, the researcher will better understand how these texts come to be “essential coordinators of institutions” (Turner, 2006: 139). This approach will allow the researcher to circumvent charts of organizational structure or workflows that often do not correspond to actual circumstances found within particular organizations. Instead by following the mapping technique proposed by Turner, the researcher can extend their analysis of translocational work process past individual accounts, observable experiences and routines.

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The overall aim was to develop a systemic understanding of the "problematic" (blocking) role of the institutions and texts influence on the vulnerable populations approaching labour market, in order to contribute to real improvement in the field.

The investigation of textual practices makes visible many phases of organizational and discursive processes that are otherwise inaccessible. In particular the formality, the designed, planned, and organized character of formal organization, depends heavily on textual practices, which coordinate, order, provide continuity, monitor, and organize relations between different segments and phases of organizational courses of action, etc. (Smith, 2005a).

For a better understanding of the whole system, our research key interviewed informants represented a diversity of professional background, both at the local (implementation level) and policy maker’s level (e.g., doctors, teachers, spokesmans, and employers, representants of local administration and social services).

As well, we explore the role played by institutional texts (documents) in provision of the services for the disabled and Roma individuals and also how these texts are mediating or organize the informants work with beneficiaries in order to find out the institutional "problematics" and then the factors that could enable and sustain a better implementation of the existing services or to propose new amendments to the existing social policies.The texts that researchers see being used by informants during field observations are often central to everything that happens. Therefore to understand the setting and to explicate the problematic arising in it, texts are a very useful ethnographic data source (Campbell, Gregor, 2008: 79).

Rather than articulating a formal question or hypothesis, the institutional ethnography researcher studying professional practices often begins with a sense of unease with issues impeding day-to-day activity. In IE the term problematic is used, frequently as a noun, to refer to these moments of disjuncture that arise when something which is happening locally is at odds with how it is known about officially or ideologically (Smith, 1987:91). In other words, problematic is a technical term used in IE, to identify the place in which the study inquiry begins (Campbell, Gregor, 2008:47).

For purpose of the study our goal was to examine the institutional processes, policies and practices of the institutions and social services offering employment services or related to employment for disabled and Roma individuals.

The interviews discussions with the representatives from public and private institutions (ONG's) were concerned with clarifying how the social services staff does their job (professional activities) how the institution is functioning, how the texts (documents) organize the implementation of the services and the staff professional relation with beneficiaries, institutional forms of power, how they interpret documents, how the institution mediate beneficiaries interactions on the labor market, explore the economic considerations, how they understand their job to be, success criteria, personal views about their work and their representations regard vulnerability of disabled/Roma individuals. Our further goal was to develop, based on this information, a descriptive analysis of some portion of the institutional relations that have been identified as consequential, in order to show how these institutional work processes are organized and how they shape the ground of disabled and Roma individual everyday experiences with the labor market.

The objective of our study was to pursue the institutional mechanisms, institutional policies /practices and steering relations underpinning the difficulties experienced by disabled individuals on the labor market.

Interviews with services providers, employers, local authority officials, as well as, written documents (texts), provided the data material for this study. Our reserch work began with the question, “what is happening here” and beyond what actually happens in the system, the second aim involved understanding the relations of the rulling (Smith, 1987) and in do it that, we examined disabled social services and policy structure.

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A good institutional ethnographic interview elicits detailed descriptions of work that make visible the institutional hooks and traces, as well as the lived experience of the teller.

The task was to gather good ethnographic understanding of the informant’s lived work experience and circumstances in a way that brings out the institutional process of ruling. 2.3. Research objectives and research questions

In order to meet the project purpose, as expressed in the previous chapter, we have established the main research objectives for the current research phase, with a few sub-ordinated goals: 3. To map the institutional relations affecting the efforts of vulnerable populations (people

with disabilities and Roma individuals) to access the labor market. 3.1. To examine the institutional factors/measures/actions that sustain/hinder exployment

among disabled individuals. 3.2. To map the institutional relations affecting the efforts of disabled individuals to access the

labor market. 3.3. To describe how institutional processes/rules operate in supporting/limiting the

employment of disabled individuals. 3.4. Investigating how texts (documents) organize, mediate and guide implementation of the

social services for disabled individuals? 3.5. To examine the institutional resources and tools for employment integration of the disabled

individuals. 3.6. To identify how the institutions mediate disabled individuals interactions on the labor

market. 3.7. To examine how the professional intervention is adapted to the needs of the beneficiaries. 3.8. Analysis of the social services measures and actions to prevent school and labor market

exclusion of disabled individuals. 3.9. To identify the institutional success/failure criteria.

4. Investigating the institutional relations and structural mechanisms underpinning the hindrances and barriers to employment experienced by vulnerable populations:

4.1. Investigating issues related to discriminatory behaviors faced by disabled individuals on the labor market, in their efforts to get a job. 4.2. To examine the discriminative institutional practices/behaviors in the employment process for disabled people. 4.3. To identify the discriminative institutional practice regard access of disabled students to education. 4.4. To examine the impact of the quota system on the employability of disabled individuals. 4.5. To examine the institutional philosophy regard labor market inclusion of disabled: granting benefits/employment services.

The three main research questions shaped by the research objectives, which guided this phase of the investigation were:

1. What are the institutional dysfunctions underpinning the hindrances and barriers to employment experienced by vulnerable populations?

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2. What are the structural obstacles/dysfunctions impeding the inclusion of the disabled individuals on the labor market?

3. How the multidisciplinary services for vulnerable population institutions/teams organized to support the employment of vulnerable populations.

2.4. Data Collection for Investigating an Institutional World

2.4.1. Experience as Data. Key Informants Interviews-institutional discourse

Institutional ethnographic researchers are always interested is moving beyond the interchanges of frontline settings in order to track the macro institutional policies and practices that organize those local settings. Thus interviews are often conducted with managers and administrators who work at the level of trans local policy making and implementation, and these interviews also require a distinctive orientation and strategy (De Vault, McCoy, 2006).

The interviews guides for the representatives from institutions/NGO's providing services to vulnerable persons were constructed drawing on Dorothy Smith "Institutional Ethnography" approaches which provides a lens for exploring both insider and outsider perspectives into productive dialog, tailoring a longstanding approach to research labor market integration of disabled people. According to Smith (2005), institutional ethnography initially examines how things work. By beginning with everyday experiences, subordinate positions in society are made central and valid knowledge bases. Institutional ethnography seeks an interface between experiences and institutional practices that create those experiences.

Interviews conducted with representatives of social services, formal/informal stakeholders, spokesman’s, local/national authority officials, policy makers, teachers, doctors, agencies and employers involved in assisting, facilitating and employing disabled individuals were done with semi-structured interviews that intended to assess the work/effort made by professionals in order to facilitate employment and to explore the strengths and the weaknesses of the institutions/NGO's offering services to vulnerable individuals being focused on procedures, processes, solutions and related dysfunction detected:(1) eligibility of the beneficiaries; (2) assessment of the beneficiaries needs; (3) detailed description of services; (4) unemployed protection/ unemployment benefits; (5) education role; (6) intervention plan; (7) how intervention is adapted to the identified needs of the beneficiaries; (8) network of collaborators; (9) running intervention- who does what?; (10) who monitors the intervention and how?; (11) evaluation of intervention results; (12) criteria for success or failure; (13) asking for and/or receiving assistance; (14) strategies/procedures for supporting the employment/staying in employment; (15) strategies for supporting educational attainment; (16) education: institutional access and completion of study programs; (17) policies, strategy, legislation, programs to prevent labor exclusion; (18) factors that hamper the employment of vulnerable groups; (19) disabled policies structure; (20) everyday aspects of the informant work; (21) the process of recruitment; (22) how the text (documents) organize the delivery of services and the interaction with beneficiaries; (23) institutional forms of power; (24) how they interpret documents; (25) how the institution mediate beneficiaries interactions on the labor market; (26) economic considerations; (27) efficiency of the institutions/services ; (28) difficulties in recruitment of disabled individuals; (29) occupational medicine; (30) qualified personnel resources; (31) existing databases; (32) the impact of quota system; (33) labor protection rules; (34) discrimination situations; (35) general education/special education.

We designed a special interview guide for each category of informants from the public institutions/NGO and participants provided individual interview. For purposes of our research study, consent to participate was obtained first at the organizational level and after from our

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research participants identified by "support personal". All interview sessions were audiotaped and after transcribed.

The objective of the interviews was to pursue institutional frameworks and features affecting the employment of the disabled. For the purpose of this study (institutional ethnographic study) the interviews were designed for understanding the “investigation of organizational and institutional processes" (DeVault, McCoy, 2006:15).

So, the focus of our research work was to describe the daily happenings in social/educational/medical/employment services and how texts are mediating the relation with beneficiaries utilizing IE theory approach and make connections between disabled individual’s difficulties in their relation to the labor market and the structures and institutions that dictate those experiences. Our reserch work began with the question, “what is happening here” and beyond what actually happens in the system, the second aim involved understanding the relations of the rulling (Smith, 1987) and in do it that, we examined disabled policy and social services structure.

The further analyses of the interviews aimed at identified the institutional dysfunctions at

the level of implementation and policymaking that causing difficulties for the disabled in their

relation to the labour market, looking to locate/map institutional relations and linkages

underpinning these structural factors and mechanisms. The conceptual framework of the semi-

structured interviews, as well as their more specific content references are presented in the

Appendix. The interviews beginning in May 2015 and were completed in June 2015.

2.4.2. Texts (documents) as data for investigating ruling apparatus

In order to find out the influence of the formal texts (documents) upon the implementation

of the services our next step in research was move from the key informants to collect, examine

and analyse the role played by institutional texts in mediating social relations.

The content analysis of the institutional texts (documents) raised the possibility of assessing and estimating the efficiency and quality of public and private services, in the context of national employment policies.

The investigation of textual practices enables us by contrast to explicate the ex-tended

social relations of the rulling apparatus. Formal organization is no longer seen as isolated but as

permeated with relations coordinating it with other phases and forms of the process of ruling

(Smith, 2005a).

We are constantly engaged in textually mediated form of action which are somehow efficacious. The „public textual discourse” refers to that order of social relations mediated by texts which is otherwise identified by such terms as „public opinion”, „mass communication”, and the like. They constitute a discrete order of social relations characterized by the detachment of discourse from the locally situated speaker and her particular biography, the anonymity of readers (or watchers) and the one-way movement of messages (Smith, 2005a: 123).

Within IE, documents (text) represent “people’s doings,” the way in which documents (text) are able to “enter into and coordinate people’s doings,” coordinate their work. IE focuses understanding of documents (text) and how they do their work around three principles:

1. Texts are constituents of social relations, are mediated by subjects, and, concert social relations;

2. Texts are part of the taken for granted routine work that is done in creating a new program, through which the program is developed “put it in a report” so that someone else can read it; and

3. Those texts provide the coordinative basis to direct others in the way that they go about doing their work (such as, approving or rejecting the program as expressed in documentary form). In general, texts are taken to be part of the phenomenon rather than simply being the means of conveying information about the phenomenon (Smith, 1987: 3-7).

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Behind the interviewees discussions conducted with representatives of institutions, ONG's, agencies, social services, spokesman’s, policy makers and employers involved in assisting, facilitating, mediating and employing disabled individuals we also analyzed the formal documents that guide their activity in order to understand how texts (documents) mediate, organize and guide the implementation of the services for the vulnerable people and also how these texts mediate the beneficiaries relation with labor market.

Documents (texts) were collected both at the local/national institutional level and from ONG's practice and included policy documents, standardized forms, regulatory texts, reporting texts, applications forms, archival data, legislation, standardized tools, brochures and other specific forms/formal documents that guide their activity were analyzed. The aim was to find out how texts (documents) are putting into practice the professional knowledge and which is the result?

2.5. Research sample

The recruiting of the interviewees for our study (representatives of institutions-teachers, doctors, agencies, NGO's, social services, policies makers, spokesman’s, and employers) was made in four steps: (1) the selection of 5 county Romanian regions (Arad, Bihor, Timiș, Moldova, and sector 1, București); (2) the selection of 6 country level public institutions (systems) in each of the previous established 5 Romanian regions; (3) define the professional categories of the future research informants; (4) we hired three "support personal" to facilitate the interviewing of the key representatives from public institutions/NGO's in Arad and Iasi country/Bucharest, sector 1, one person for each country level.

The main requirement was that the "support personal" person must be an active member of an NGO for Disabled/Roma, NGO's with experience in implementing intervention programs for disabled individuals/Roma and social development of Romania. The main task of the "support personal" was to facilitate our research team (identification, drawing up a list of potential key interviewees, nominal reaching a prior agreement from them, accessing contact and maintaining relations with research participants, establish, together with the research team the interviews day), 1-2 interviews with key representatives of local public institutions/NGO's and county/sector 1 for each category of the following systems and professional categories:

Education System: preschool headmasters (EM), teachers-general education (EM), headmasters-general education (EM), teachers-special education (ES), headmasters-special education (ES), school Inspectorates representatives – CJRAE (ES), Commission for Professional Orientation (ES), school Inspectorates representatives – school inspector for Roma (ER), and support teachers (ES).

Employment: Employment services representatives (A), employers (A). Medical system: service director (M), doctor – members of the Handicap Commission (M),

doctor – member of the Invalidity Commission, labour medicine doctor (M), family doctors (M).

Social services: public and private local authorities representatives (SSPU). Policy makers: members of the c ounty council (PM), members of the National Council

against Discrimination (PM), members of Ministry of Education (PM), members of National Roma Agency (PM), members of Ministery of Labour (PM).

Spokesmen: Representatives of NGOs (RV), Representative voices (RV). History of the Romanian social protection services for Roma/disabled individuals (H).

Study participants were identified as "key informants". The description of the interviewee sample is presented in Table1. The selected "key informants", met, as Morse (1995), describes, criteria that defined them as a “primary informants”. Such criteria include: having necessary knowledge, information and experience of the issue being researched, is capable of reflecting on

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that knowledge and experience, has time to be involved in the project, is willing to be involved in the project, and, indeed, can provide access to other informants (p. 228). Interviewing and recruitment of the informants included two central strategies.The first strategy aimed to recrut subjects who trully knowledge of the organizational procedures that they are a part of and participate in. Second, we wanted to interview subjects positioned differently hierarchically in the institution/s. Positions held by the informants are from the top management to executive.

We have coded the informants with a group of letters and figures. The first letter is showing the type of the system the informants are coming (M for medical system; EM for general education system; ES for special education system; ER for Roma education; RV for spokesmen; A for employment /employers; H History of the Romanian social protection services of Roma/disabled individuals; PM for policy makers; SSPU for social services; and the figure/s represent the hierarchical number of order of the interview. So, our study is based on the qualitative analysis of the 71 interviews with key representatives from 6 different systems, both ONG's and public institutions. The distribution of the informants according to their professional affiliation is the following: 21 education representatives, 9 employment services/employers representatives, 15 medical representatives, 12 social servicess representatives, 6 policy makers’ representatives, 6 spokesmens and 2 academics. As well, research participants represented both genders.

Information and consent to participate in the study templates were shared with all the

research participants. Their principal socio-professional characteristics are presented in the table

below in a synthetic manner.

Table 1. Description of the interviewee sample

Code System area Professional affiliation of the informant

EM1 Education Preschool headmaster-private kindergarten

EM2 Education Teacher-general education (former school inspector)

EM3 Education Teacher general education

EM4 Education Roma teacher-general education

EM5 Education Headmaster-general education

EM6 Education Head of the school with Roma

EM7 Education Headmaster-general education

ES8 Education Home Teacher-special education school

ES9 Education Secondary School Teacher-special education school

ES10 Education Teacher private special school

ES11 Education Headmaster special education school

ES12 Education (Vice)Head of the Inclusive Education Center

ES13 Education (Vice)Head of the special education school

ES14 Education Social worker-School Inspectorates representatives CJRAE County Centre for Educational Resources and Assistance

ES15 Education School inspector

ES16 Education Psycho-pedagogics teacher

ES17 Education Head of CJRAE County Centre for Educational Resources and Assistance

ES18 Education School Inspectorates representatives – Commission for Professional Orientation-Head of Special Education Resource Centre

ER19 Education School Inspectorates representatives – school inspector for Roma (School Inspector for Minorities)

ES20 Education Adviser teacher

ES21 Education Support teacher

ES55 Education Special education

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A56 Employment Employment services representatives –two representatives of AJOFM

A39 Employment Psychologist DGASPC-General Directorate of Social and Child Protection

A22 Employment Deputy Executive Director AJOFM (Employment County Agency)

A23 Employment Representative of AJOFM (Employment County Agency)

A60 Employment Senior Advisor AJOFM (Employment County Agency)

A62 Employment Advisor AJOFM (Employment County Agency)

A57 Employment Representative of protected unit

A24 Employment Senior Recruiter

A63 Employment Employer

M25 Medical Member of the Handicap Commission- Director of Adult Handicap Commission

M26 Medical Service director- Handicap Degree Evaluation

M27 Medical Head of the Handicap Degree Evaluation Department

M28 Medical Member of the Handicap Degree Evaluation Committee-disabled adults

M65 Medical Representative of DGASPC

M66 Medical Representative of DGASPC

M29 Medical Service director-rights

M30 Medical Member of the Handicap Commission: responsible with medical evaluation for establishing the handicap degree and school orientation

M31 Medical Member of the Child Complex Evaluation Service

M32 Medical Pediatrician - representative of the Disabled Child Protection Commission

M33 Medical Member of Adult Complex Assessment Service

M34 Medical Doctor-member of the Invalidity Commission

M35 Medical Family doctor

M36 Medical Labour medicine doctor

M37 Medical Family doctor

SSPU38 Social services

Public and private local authorities representatives-social worker from the City Hall


Community Social Administration


Director NGO


Social Services coordinator DASC (benefits)-Community Social Work


responsible for Roma community


Head of Bethany Social Services Foundation


Head of the Department for Institutionalized Children


Head of the Department for Adults Living in State Sheltered Houses


Social services coordinator SPPU


Head of the Community Social Work


Representative of Programs Directorate DGASPC


Representative ONG

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2.6. Ways of speaking and discourse: the textual character of ruling apparatus

In contemporary global capitalist society, the “everyday world” (the material context of each embodied subject) is organized in powerful ways by trans local social relations that pass through local settings and shape them according to a dynamic of transformation that begins and gathers speed somewhere else (Smith, 2005). Smith refers to these trans local social relations that carry and accomplish organization and control as “relations of ruling”: They are those forms that we know as bureaucracy, administration, management, professional organization and the media. They include also the complex of discourses, scientific, technical and cultural, that intersect, interpenetrate and coordinate the multiple sites of ruling (Smith, 2005: 6).

The organizational processes are loosely coordinated as a complex of ruling relations and apparatus. These relations have in general been known in sociology as systems of rational actions. They are characterized by a capacity to realize the same forms, relations, courses of actions, etc., in the varieties and multiplicities of the local settings in which they operate and regulate (Smith, 2005a: 212). These were the forms of social relations which Weber analyzed as rational legal forms of domination, focusing in his time particularly upon the bureaucratic process (Weber, 1968). For bureaucracy is par excellence that mode of governing which separates the performance of ruling from particular individuals, and make organization independent of particular persons and local settings. Weber saw documents as an essential part of the bureaucratic process. In his time the transfer of function of social consciousness from individuals to the textual practices of formal organization had not yet reached the degree of technical elaboration attained with the development of the computer (Smith, 2005a: 213).

Central in textual practices of the ruling apparatus, the term „discourse” has been used for those forms of communication and interrelation that are mediated by texts - journals, magazines, newspapers, books, television, movies, etc.

In relation with the social institutions/employers the beneficiaries of the services must to elaborate or fill application forms, curriculum vitae, motivation letter, letter of intent, letter of endorsement, etc. On the other hand, our informants work process is regulated by legislation,

PM58 Policy makers Member of the County Council

PM47 Policy makers Director of the County Office for Roma

PM61 Policy makers Representative of the National Council Against Discrimination

PM67 Policy makers Representative of the National Roma Agency

PM69 Policy makers Representative of the Ministery of Labour

PM71 Policy makers Senior adviser ANPD

RV48 Spokesmen Roma representative at County Council

RV49 Spokesmen Head of Blind Association

RV50 Spokesmen Founder and active member of Roma Foundation

RV51 Spokesmen NGO committee chairman

RV70 Spokesmen Representative of Disabled Foundation

RV52 Spokesmen Representative of ONG

H53 History of the system for disabled protection

Academic representative

H54 History of the system for Roma protection

Representative…

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policy documents, regulatory texts, reporting texts, archival data, legislation, standardized tools and on the other hand these text are mediating also their professional relation with beneficiaries.

Discourse creates forms of social consciousness that are extra-local and externalized vis-à-vis the local subject. As Foucault has pointed out, the subject in the text of discourse ‘is a particular, vacant place that may in fact be filled by different individuals’ (Smith, 2005a). Frankel and Beckman have examined the construction of clinical reality in a medical setting, showing how the text-making process – a movement from talk to record taking – influences the production of ‘facts’ (Frankel, Beckman, 1983). ‘Facts’ arise in processes mediated by textual forms (Smith, 2005a: 216).

In his study of how facts are derived in a welfare agency, Zimmerman (1969) investigates the work of inscription at the boundaries of local actualities and their organizational conversion. The welfare worker’s investigation is informed by a ‘stance’ which never takes the client’s word but relies on external textual sources (bank statements, birth certificates, etc.) or home visits. Substitution of the ‘investigate stance’ for the caseworker’s subjective judgment is essential to constitution of organizational facticity (Smith, 2005a: 217).

In our research, we have analyzed these forms of communication and interactions between the triangle: vulnerable groups (Roma and disabled persons) – social institutions (public institutions, private institutions, ONG’s) – texts (documents) that are mediating the work and interaction of the institutions/ONG's representatives with the vulnerable people and labor market. 2.7. Directions of research

Hermeneutic practices – concepts, categories, codes, and methods of interpretation, schemata, and the like – must be understood and active constituents of social relations and social courses of action rather than merely as constituents or indices of that amorphous designate ‘culture’.

Interpretive practices which ‘activate’ the text are viewed as properties of social relations and not merely as the competences of ‘individuals’. Further, recognizing document or text as constituent of social relations also means being interested in the social organization of its production as prior phase in the social relation rather than as work of a particular author (Smith, 2005a: 221).

The other central focus of the investigation into textual relations and forms of action must

be reader-text relation. Textual analyses must by primary but not, of course, exclusive method of

investigation (Smith, 2005a: 222). The investigation of textual practices enables us by contrast to explicate the ex-tended

social relations of the rulling apparatus. Formal organization is no longer seen as isolated but as

permeated with relations coordinating it with other phases and forms of the process of ruling

(Smith, 2005a).

The study of documentary of textually mediated social relations, as I have envisaged it, is

not a distinct field, developing its own theories and methods of research. It is, as I emphasized,

the extension of a materialism synthesized by Marx into forms of consciousness that are

externalized in definite socially organized relations and forms. (Smith, 2005a: 224) The enterprise

is indeed grandiose; it is that of transforming our understanding of the nature of power when

power is textually mediated (Smith, 2005a: 224).

The result of an IE is a map of text-mediated social relations that shows how the

institutions of interest are organized to coordinate the work of people in various local settings with

one another and to shape their consciousness in specific ways (Smith, 2005).

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Thus, it is necessary to look beyond the local, to discover the text-mediated ruling relations in which that experience is embedded and in which the individuals participate (Smith, 2005). Rather than asking “whose map is this?” IE researchers ask instead “in what institutional activity is this map located?”

Analyzing the semi-structured interviews to reveal the problematic aspects of the everyday work activity (knowledge) of the key informants from public/private institutions about their work practice in services delivered/relations to disabled/Roma individuals was the aim of our research design. In doing this we utilized the qualitative methods framework. As Max Weber mentioned, irrespective of the type research design that is chosen, it is the “the qualitative aspect of phenomena (that) concerns us in the social sciences”. Also quantitative methods are opting to identifying meaning. You need to have a qualitative understanding of the topic as well as an emphatic ability to put yourself in the place of the other in order to be able to develop sensible questions and categories of answers. When it is impossible or inconvenient to categories people’s experiences in forehand, we need qualitative methods and do the categorization afterwards.

In fact our task involved understanding the relations of the institutional ruling underpinning the hindrances and barriers to employment experienced by vulnerable populations.

If there were a known, defined and limited set of alternative obstacles that people could meet, and we wanted to know which of them was the most common, than we could use a survey. But there are an unlimited number of obstacles that people could face, and most of them are most likely to be undefined, complex with a lot of possible variations and nuances.

That’s why we need to understand what vulnerable people are striving with, in the ways it is experienced in specific contexts, in order to develop meaningful categories and to understand their implications.

Quantitative methods help us determine the distribution of certain defined difficulties experienced by the disabled and Roma populations and the differences between the two. But it cannot help us understand the mechanisms underpinning these difficulties and why the difficulties are produced differently for the two populations (if that was the case), or why they differ between contexts. When these mechanisms are understood, this knowledge is also transferable to other contexts. The specific analyzing procedure involved an initial stage of considering the categories resulted from the discourse of the interviewees. We focused on the "problematics" meaning the institutional identified factors/processes easing/blocking the access of disabled/Roma people on the labor market. The factors we looked for were institutional or general situation (member of the Roma/Disability group).

These factors were accounted for in the domains identified since the beginning of our research: family, community services, education, discrimination and living conditions influencing employment. Once identified we passed to the second stage which involved the role of institutions and texts in this easing/blocking process. We are looking for:

1. Official texts European and national (EU and national legislation, government strategies, methodologies, official procedures, services and benefits allocation instructions, etc.)

2. Public institutions (education institutions, local authorities, social services, county employment agencies, NGO’s, specific associations, churches, etc.)

3. “Sociological institutions” (family, group of relatives, friends, neighbors, other networks but also Internet facilities, media services, etc.) that helped/ blocked the access to a work place.

In fact we traced the units of significance linked with our focus (involvement in the labor

market) trying to identify the “problematic” (blocking) role of the institutions and texts but also the “benefic” (helping) role of them if any.

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The overall aim of this study was to develop a comprehensive and sistemic understanding of the institutional perspective regard the main problems related to employment for the vulnerable populations in order to contribute to real improvement in the field.

Building on these results, a further analysis will be focused on identifying successful interventions addressed to socio-professional integration of disabled and Roma and analyzing the factors that generate the potential for success in these interventions.

The 5th work package will focused on identifying and analyzing the successful interventions (models) implemented in Romania with the two target groups addressed to their professional integration. The assessment of the selected research cases (interventions) will involve: the assessment of each partner organization that has participated within the intervention; the analysis of the functional relations between the partners; the analysis of the intervention itself, as a distinct entity from each of the partners involved, as holding its own: life-span (duration), objectives, indicators, budget, methodology, beneficiaries, quality, sustainability, impact etc.; the assessment of the context within the intervention was conducted: financing program (if the case), the donor(s) and its (their) technical, administrative and financial requirements, compatibility with the EU, national and local policies, pre-existing social needs, innovative aspects, impact in the community, duration of the results. After these assessments and analysis will be conducted, the research team will score each of the cases, compare and rate them. Thus, we will have not only a clear definition of what is a successful model, but also an objective assessment grid for evaluating and ranking such models. 2.8. Ethical issues

Throughout all phases of the research process we have been sensitive to ethical considerations. A common misconception is that these ethical issues only surface during data collection. They arise, however, during several phases of the research process, and they are ever expanding in scope as inquirers become more sensitive to the needs of participants, sites, stakeholders, and publishers of research.

Beginning the study involves initial contact with participants. Each researcher disclosed the purpose of the study to the participants. Each study participant completed an informed consent. This form indicate that participating in the study is voluntary and it would not place the participants at undue risk. Further, the members of the research team take into account and try to anticipate the cultural, ethnic, religious differences in the participants that need to be respected. 2.8.1. Informed consent.

Consistent with its commitment to individual autonomy, social science in the Mill and Weber tradition insists that research subjects have the right to be informed about the nature and consequences of experiments in which they are involved. Proper respect for human freedom generally includes two necessary conditions. Subjects must agree voluntarily to participate-that is, without physical or psychological coercion (Denzin, Lincon, 2011).

In addition, their agreement must be based on full and open information. ,,The Articles of the Nuremberg Tribunal and the Declaration of Helsinki both state that subjects must be told the duration, methods, possible risks, and the purpose or aim of the experiment (Soble, 1978:40). The most important ethical agreements that prevail in social research about what is proper and improper in the conduct of scientific inquiry are the following (Babbie, 2013: 31-40): 2.8.2. Voluntary Participation

A major tenet of medical research ethics is that experimental participation must be voluntary. The same norm applies to social research. No one should be forced to participate.

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2.8.3. No Harm to the Participants Because subjects can be harmed psychologically in the course of social research study,

the researcher must look for the subtlest dangers and guard against them. For example, research subjects are asked to reveal personal characteristics that may seem demeaning. Revealing such information usually makes subjects feel, at the very least, uncomfortable. Social research projects may force participants to face aspects of themselves that they don’t normally consider. This can happen even when the information is not revealed directly to the researcher. Any research runs the risk of injuring other people in some way.

Increasingly, the ethical norms of voluntary participation and no harm to participants have become formalized in the concept of informed consent. This norm means that subjects must base their voluntary participation in research projects on a full understanding of the possible risk involved.

Although the fact often goes unrecognized, another possible source of harm to subjects lies in the analysis and reporting the data. Reasonably sophisticated subjects can locate themselves in the various indexes and tables. Sensitivity to the issue and experience with its applications, however, should improve the researcher’s tact in delicate areas of research. 2.8.4. Anonymity and Confidentiality

The clearest concern in the protection of the subjects’ interests and well-being is the protection of their identity, especially in survey research. Two techniques-anonymity and confidentiality-assist researchers in this regard, although people often confuse them two.

A research project guarantees anonymity when the researcher-not just the people who read about the research-cannot identify a given response with a given respondent. This implies that a typical interview survey respondent can never be considered anonymous, because an interviewer collects the information from an identifiable respondent.

A research project guarantees confidentiality when the researcher can identify a given persons responses but essentially promises not to do so publicly. Whenever a research project is confidential rather than anonymous, it is the researchers’ responsibility to make the fact clear to the respondent. Moreover, researchers should never use the term anonymous to mean confidential. In conclusion, the information respondents give must at least be kept confidential.

Codes of ethics insist on safeguard to protect people's identities and those of the research locations. Confidentiality must be assured as the primary safeguard against unwanted exposure. All personal data ought to be secured or concealed and made public only behind a shield of anonymity (Denzin, Lincon, 2011).

Professional etiquette uniformly concurs that no one deserves harm or embarrassment as a result of insensitive research practices. ,”The single most likely source of harm in social science inquiry, is the disclosure of private knowledge considered damaging by experimental subjects” (Reiss, 1979, p.73). Despite the signature status of privacy protection, watertight confidentiality has proved to be impossible. 2.8.5. Analysis and Reporting

In addition to their ethical obligations to subjects, researchers have ethical obligations to their colleagues in the scientific community. These obligations concern the analysis of data and the way the results are reported. In any rigorous study, the researcher should be more familiar than anyone else with the studies’ technical limitations and failures. Researchers have an obligation to make such shortcomings known to their readers-even if admitting qualifications and mistakes makes them feel foolish. Negative findings, should be reported if they are at all related to the analysis. There is an unfortunate myth in scientific reporting that only positive discoveries are worth reporting.

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2.8.6. Accuracy Ensuring that data are accurate is a cardinal principle in social science codes as well.

Fabrications, fraudulent materials, omissions, and contrivances are both nonscientific and unethical. Data that are internally and externally valid are the coin of the realm, experimentally and morally. In an instrumentalist, value-neutral social science, the definitions entailed by the procedures themselves establish the ends by which they evaluated as moral (Denzin, Lincon, 2011).

All research participants have expressed their consent to voluntary participation in the study and the audio recording of the interview. Written consent of research participants to give an interview to the researcher was regarded as a formal commitment. The informed consent form consists of two parts: the information sheet and the consent certificate (see appendix). Informed consent is a process for getting permission before conducting a research on a person. All interviews conversations will be audio recorded and then transcribed.

The researchers explained the participants in the study why they have been chosen to participate in this study to not be fearfully, confused or concerned. Also, the researchers who conducted the interviews indicated clearly that they can choose to participate or not. The researchers explained to the participants how the research team will maintain the confidentiality of data with respect to both information about the participant and information that the participant shares.

On the other hand, the researchers explained the type of questions that the participants will be asked to respond and also inform them about the question or discussion which may be sensitive or potentially embarrassment.

The informed consent used in the research refer to the following aspects (Appendix):

the purpose of the research;

how long their participation will last;

who is involved in the research;

how data about them will be managed and used;

how long and where the data will be stored;

the purpose of the consent form;

what is expected of them if they agree to participate in the research;

how information will be provided to them throughout the research;

that their participation is voluntary;

that they can withdraw from the study at any time.

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3. Policies and services addressed to increasing employment of disabled persons in Romania – the institutional perspective

3.1. Introduction – some clarifications on the lack of clear and centralized

definition of the concept of disability in Romania, in accordance with the use of the term in EU

Currently, in Romania there isn’t a centralized vision or strategy regarding the employment of disabled persons.There are fragmented statistics regarding:

- number of persons with a handicap certificate, by type and degree of handicap; - number of persons with an invalidity pension; - number of persons with a handicap certificate registered with the PES agencies as being

in search for a job.

But this statistics lack aggregated information regarding: - a clear estimation on how many persons with a handicap retained their work capacity; - the real number of disabled persons (or even persons with a handicap certificate) that

have a job; - the actual unemployment rate among disabled persons.

Incompatibilities with European statistics in the field: - in Romania, the term “disability” is just a theoretical concept and not a practical one,

since it does not relate with most of legislative provisions regulating the area of social intervention with this group; based on the current legislative provisions, just the term of “handicap” can be applied, proved or worked with;

- In the statistical accounts at the EU level, disability is defined as: - People having a basic activity difficulty (such as seeing, hearing, walking, communicating). - People having a work limitation caused by a longstanding health condition and/or a basic activity difficulty.

The discrepancy between the definition and use of the two concepts could explain why, in 2011, when the European Union Labor Force Survey (EU-LFS) included an ad hoc module (AHM) on employment of disabled people, the measurements made in 28 EU Member States plus Turkey, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland, showed 28.5% of the Romanians reporting as disabled - “a longstanding health condition” (7.6%), “a basic activity difficulty” (1.3%) or both (9.7%) – while the Ministry of Work reported (in the same year), a rate of 3.22% of “handicapped” persons in Romania.

3.2. The assessment process for releasing the handicap certificate

The process of obtaining the handicap degree is complex and time-consuming. The interested persons have to obtain a lot of documents before entering the evaluation process:

The person has to prepare his medical documents, starting with the medical letter from the family physician and from the medical specialists that he has recorded with, to enclose various paraclinical laboratory tests, douments regarding his identity and socio-professional status, proving that he is either an employee or without any income... (25_representative of public county-level institution providing services for disabled persons and releasing the handicap certificates)

The process includes an evaluation from the Service for the complex assessment and one from the Assessment Commission. Even if they are somehow hosted by the same body, the two structures have a certain level of autonomy from one another, but they include similar types of specialists.

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The first step of the assessment process is accomplished by the Service for the complex assessment. In spite of the fact that they put an emphasis on the medical aspect (being concerned mainly with the evaluation of the medical documents and comprising one or more medical specialists), they have no possibility to clinically assess the medical condition of the person who has entered the evaluation process. They are rather concerned with the evaluation of the medical documents, even if the presence of the evaluated person is mandatory.

Their responsibilities do not include clinical examination… in fact, their attention is focused more on evaluating the papers, but with the patient present (25_representative of public county-level institution providing services for disabled persons and releasing the handicap certificates)

This procedure is probably justified by the need to prevent corruption and any type of attempt to “fool the system”. Basically, the integrity of the medical specialists that have initially released the papers that certify the medical condition of their patient is not trusted.

Sometimes there are some discrepancies between what comes from the medical specialist and what they ascertain. (25_representative of public county-level institution providing services for disabled persons and releasing the handicap certificates)

There have been some scandals… that scandal with the blind persons in Iasi… a whole village had a handicap certificate [presumably due to blindness] and they where driving their bikes. Basically, this thing can happen very easily, if the medical specialists gives him. (28_member of the assessment commission for establishing the handicap degree)

After the Service for the complex assessment has finished the evaluation and made a proposal regarding the handicap degree that can be granted, or the refusal of the request, a third structure intervenes – the Secretariat of the Assessment Commission, which receives the documentation from the Service for the complex assessment and pass it to the Assessment Commission.

This structure is interested just in the evaluation of the documents and of the proposal made by the Service for the complex assessment.

They do not see [the applicant], have no business [with him] … They analyze based on some criteria and release the certificate which establishes the degree and the type of handicap. (25_representative of public county-level institution providing services for disabled persons and releasing the handicap certificates)

This will be the body that will decide the granting or not of the handicap degree and the signing of the decision that certifies the type and level of handicap granted (the handicap certificate). Sometimes, because of the workload, they actually have no time to make a serious assessment, but, instead just go with the proposal received from the Service for the complex assessment.

There are requests… is a marathon of signatures, over 40-50 applications… and one of these meetings should last two hours; in two hours you barely have time to sign [the papers], let alone looking over them. (28_member of the assessment commission for establishing the handicap degree)

This long and complicated process is basically determined by the need of all parties involved for someone else to take the responsibility of making the decision, or, at least, for them not to be the only ones involved in the decision-making process. The main reason for this “fugue” of responsibility is that financial rights are assimilated to the issuance of a handicap certificate and, because where money is involved, there is also suspicion of corruption, no one wants to be the object of this suspicion, or, at least, the only object of suspicion. Each and every structure involved wants to feel that they are part of a larger system, and that the decision taken is not left entirely up to them, but is rather based on objective criteria and justified and approved by other structures as well.

Ironically, the interviews show that the criteria are not that objective after all, but they are often changed and sometimes rather left open to interpretation.

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(Do this criteria change?) They have been changed and they change all the time, almost yearly. (27_Head of the Service for the complex assessment)

The criteria allow for many discussions ...is really hard. (26_Head of the Service for the complex assessment)

The problem with the methodological instructions is that they change very often and they [the changes] are not put together. And then, a Ministry Order comes changing that, this doesn’t fit there any longer. And when the evaluation is made [the members of the commission ask]: “Has this been subject to change? This remained, that was changed”. Normally, when something is changed, they should also change the classifier, at that page appears the new reglementation. It’s very complicated to work with it… very complicated to manage to evaluate with these things, especially that you would have to go through papers written by doctors with their handwriting. (28_member of the assessment commission for establishing the handicap degree)

The situations in which the beneficiaries contested the refusal of granting the certificate or the degree received, and subsequently won, do not help at all with the responsibility taking of the public institution that coordinates the certificate issuance, but rather reinforce the perception of those specialists involved in the assessment process, that they are susceptible to professional wrongdoing and errors, that could later cost them.

We answer in corpora, we are controlled by the Superior Commission or by the Social Inspection. The Social Inspection has severe penalties for wrong decisionmaking [regarding the handicap degree]... the legislation has penalties established for us. (26_Head of the Service for the complex assessment)

In a certain control, maybe they ask “why didn’t we ask for them [certain medical tests]… we have a control… they only see the criteria they don’t see the entire picture. (27_Head of the Service for the complex assessment)

Moreover, because of this “fugue” of suspicion, often the persons involved in this entire process of evaluation make apparently illogical and sometimes cynical decisions of not informing or counseling the beneficiaries (for ex., about the type of documents they should bring additionally) that apply for the certificate, in order not to be suspected of corruption.

You cannot say to him “Take care, because you are missing a document”. It’s considered that you have influenced a decision and this is a little bit a traffic of influence. (28_member of the assessment commission for establishing the handicap degree)

Paradoxically, the body that actually signs (and, by that, takes the responsibility) the decision for the issuing of the handicap certificate (that puts the disabled person in the position to access her financial rights according to the law) is the body that does not have any direct contact with the disabled person, at all, during the entire process. It is very probable that the chain of decision was built like that intentionally, in order to prevent any possibility of interaction for the two parties involved (the one that asks for the benefits – the disabled person and the one that grants the rights – the Assessment Commission). Thus, the suspicion of bribery or any other form of influence would be reduced or canceled.

A lot of papers created to avoid fraud. (28_member of the assessment commission for establishing the handicap degree)

It appears that, in the construction of the system the lawmakers were very preoccupied with enforcing various types of mechanisms that will ensure the evaluation process (that gives access to financial benefits) is not influenced in any way. They have gone so far as to specifically stipulate, in the text of the law, that pity is unacceptable in the evaluation process for granting (or not) the handicap certificate:

“The assessment is subordinated to the principle of handicapped person’s best interest, according to which any decision or measure is taken only in the interest of the person, thus

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rendering unacceptable the approaches based on pity or the perception of the persons with handicap as being helpless”. (art. 46 of Government Decision no. 268/2007).

As mentioned above, one of the informants remembers that very clearly, when justifying why the persons involved in the process are not willing to inform the disabled petitioners what other documents they needed to complete their application dossier.

This concept could be the basis on which the beaurocrats involved in the assessment process are justifying their behavior with the disabled persons, which was catalogued as “cold” and “uninterested” by the disabled informants, interviewed in the previous stage of the research.

Who should I speak to, ma’am? To these papers? I have nobody to speak to. People are very cold. They are not kind. No, they aren’t. (DMI16: 78-80)

Nobody is interested there although they have psychologists, counselors, they don’t work. They are a bit superficial in their work. It is a state-owned institution, so they do it [their work] thinking about the passing hours. Just like selling tickets at the train station. Something like that. They don’t have any patience with a person. And in the commission, when I went, the situation was identical in connection to the treatment applied by the physicians. The interest is low. (DMA4: 324-328)

For the disabled person applying for the certificate, who is unaware of this beaurocratic logic, the entire process must appear not only as disconcerting, but rather as a competition of papers and documents that should cover most aspects as possible – because nobody tells you what you should bring, you bring as much as you can, just to make sure you covered all topics.

The paradox is that the granting of the certificate and the handicap degree is not done based on the large diversity of health problems, but rather on the gravity of just one of them.

They would take into consideration just the main disabling condition, they do not cumulate [different types of] conditions, but just the condition for which the handicap degree can be acknowledged. (27_Head of the Service for the complex assessment)

The final and often only result of this complex assessment process is the access of the disabled person (now officially recognized as “handicapped”) to the financial benefits he is entitled to, due to the recent change in his status.

When they come and challenge the certificate, most of them are unsatisfied with the handicap degree and they justify that they are motivated by the material need. Because they have no possibility to survive with that money, a few or a lot, no matter how much they received based on the certificate issuance, they are their only source of income. (26_Head of the Service for the complex assessment)

The preoccupations of the public institutions with the employment of the disabled persons are only of recent nature, and mainly due to the influence of the EU policies and/or financing programs.

3.3. The relevant institutions and approaches in addressing employment among disabled persons

3.3.1. Romanian PES – Public Employment System

The Romanian Public Employment System is quite well organized, with specialized institutions both at central and local level.

At central level, the National Agency for Employment is a public body, working under the authority of the Ministry of Work, Family, Social Protection and Elderly Persons. It was established in 1998, through the Law no. 145/1998, as the National Agency for Employment and Professional Training, which had competences in the areas of employment, professional training and social protection of unemployed persons. Subsequently, in 2000, through a Government Emergency Ordinance (no. 294/2000), its name was changed into the current one

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National Agency for Employment, and since then, in spite of the several legislation changes that it has undergone, its name and responsibilities have basically remain the same.

At local level, in each Romanian county, there is a County Agency for Employment, which is subordinated to the National Agency for Employment.

At national level, there are 42 such agencies (the Municipal Agency in Bucharest and 41 county agencies), which coordinate the activity of 70 local agencies and 141 offices. The number of local agencies subordinated to each county agency varies between 1 and 6, while the number of offices from each county is around 3, but can encounter variations among counties.

Each County Agency has authority and responsibilities at county level towards the organizing, coordination and implementation of activities related to the employment and social protection of unemployed persons.

The main law governing the activity of the County Agencies is the Law no. 76/2002, regarding the insurance system for unemployment and stimulation of employment. The law establishes the main benefits and services the unemployed and persons in search for a job are entitled to or should receive from the public employment agencies: - Unemployment benefits; - Information, professional guidance and counseling; - Mediation on the labor market; - Professional qualification training programs.

The county agencies are also the bodies that promote, coordinate, manage and monitor, at local (county) level, the access of the local employers to various types of incentives, designed to increase the employment of vulnerable categories.

According to the Law no. 76/2002, all employers (public and private) are required to announce the vacant positions to the County Agency for Employment from the county where they have their headquarters, in a period of maximum 5 working days from time when the position is officially vacant.

Thus, at local (county) level, the main public body competent to address employment issues is the County Agency for Employment, which is the most entitled, through law, to intervene in unemployment related situations, having the means and the authority to address financial support, financial incentives and also specialized services, to both employers and to unemployed persons.

3.3.2. Other service providers in involved in increasing employment

According to the Law no. 76/2002 and the Government Decision no. 277/2002, any legal entity, public or private, can provide specialized services designed to increase employment, as long as it is accredited. The accreditation process is relatively rapid (the law imposes a maximum of 30 days period for processing the application) and is managed by the County Agency for Employment from the county where the applicant had its headquarters.

The specialized services for which the potential provider can apply are: - information and counseling services; - mediation for the internal labor market.

If the service provider wants to also provide professional qualification training programs,

it can get a separate accreditation (just for a specific program), following a different accreditation procedure, according to the Government Ordinance no. 129/2000. In this case, the accreditation process is managed by a different body (The National Authority for Qualification).

Also employment service providers – public and private – can assist the unemployed in finding a job. They are accredited by the PES, but they usually provide the services project based.

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3.3.3. Approaches used by the two types of service providers for tackling unemployment and increasing employment

The underlying (social) problem approach This approach, using the “systemic evaluation” principle, looks at the unemployed person

through the perspective of the causality of his current status. Under this approach, unemployment is just the effect of other (potentially more important) underlying social problems that the person is dealing with (disability, lack of experience on the labor market, discrimination etc.). The use of this approach has created the concept of “vulnerable groups” on the labor market.

The actual implementation of this approach is based mainly on the preoccupation of the service providers to reach national indicators established by the centralized public bodies. It is a top-down approach, where the local service providers, focused on the accessing of various financing programs (designed and managed centrally), create their project interventions in line with the eligibility criteria established by the Contracting Authority.

The best example is the Romanian ESF program, with most of the financing coming from the EU, which was at central level, and implemented at local level, through competition-based financing.

One of the financing lines of the Romanian ESF program (Priority Axis 6, Key Area of Intervention 6.2) 2007-2013 was focused on the “Improvement of access and participation of the vulnerable groups on the labor market”.

The total projected financing budget for this line alone was around EUR 165,5 million. Among the vulnerable groups targeted by this financing line, there were: Roma persons, disabled persons, families with more than 2 children, women, former prisoners and so on.

The use of this approach requires an integrated intervention, which addresses mainly, but not only, the issue of unemployment, with a subsequent focus also on the underlying problem that has caused it. Usually, the service providers that use this approach, alongside the specialized services for increasing employment, also provide complementary support services for their beneficiaries – daycare for their children or other dependents, representation (in relation to other institutions), professional training programs, referral for other services etc.

Theoretically, this approach is seen as the most effective in providing sustainability of the positive changes brought in the life of the target groups, although, due to a lack of consistency and systematic promotion of this approach in the current social policies and programs, it had been in use just for a short period and in specific and sometimes hard to reproduce contexts, which make it very difficult to be proved as sustainable also in practice.

On the other hand, the case workers involved in the implementation of this approach are not always confident in the efficacy of the method, because of the multitude of negative factors associated, that could threaten the end result and / or are making the success difficult to evaluate.

The perceived needs approach This approach is based on a pre-existing knowledge the service provider has about the

needs of the target groups and also a pre-defined structure of the services provided. Basically, if the eligibility criteria are met, the beneficiary is eligible to receive the package of benefits and services that all the beneficiaries that meet these criteria are also entitled to.

In this approach, the unemployed person is perceived almost exclusively through the perspective of his current status on the labor market, without a specific concern regarding other factors that could contribute to it. Thus, the intervention of the service provider is focused on “fixing” the problem (unemployment), with no particular attention to other associated factors.

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(The Agency provides employment services for persons in search for a job). For all categories of persons, in general, all agencies [to that]... we offer these services to all persons that refer to our agency. (23_PES agency representative)

We are not interested in the ethnicity, nationality or disability of the person. If the employer accepts the person, is ok. (56_PES agency representative)

This is the preferred approach of the PES agencies, an approach that was developed, detailed and regulated over time, and which gives a certain homogeneity and similarity between counties in managing the cases. The lack of adaptation of services to the characteristics of the target groups makes some of the PES representatives interviewed see this approach as a non-discriminatory one:

We make no discrimination... if we have a computer operator course, all categories enter it, no matter that they are disabled or Roma. (Do you have some courses especially for the disabled?) No, they enter together [with the others]. (23_PES agency representative)

The services are the same, additionally, we would provide information and counseling... we also organize thematic job fairs. (60_PES agency representative)

We are an employment agency, we deal with people who want to work and also meet the necessary conditions. (56_PES agency representative)

For example, when a person registers with the County Agency for Employment, he would pass through the same intervention stages and qualify for the same amount of benefits, no matter the county he has registered with.

They are informed they can refer to us after graduation and, if they cannot find a job in 60 days, they have the right to unemployment allowance of 250 lei [approx. EUR 55] for six months. (22_ PES agency representative)

This is also a top-down approach, resulted from the already tested policies and programs that have been chosen for implementation nation-wide, probably because they have proved efficient in reaching the targets of an agenda at some point in time.

The street level bureaucrats that provide services based on this approach are confident in their “system” of managing the cases and, overall, in the fact that the approach is the best one, first because it could be the only one they know, and secondly, because, due to its persistence in time, it is probably the most regulated of all, letting very little room for error, and thus the risk of personal accountability in case of failure is minimized.

First and most important, we try to find him a job, so he wouldn’t have to gather all the papers to apply for unemployment benefits, if we can find him something better... we do the mediation and the law doesn’t let us to work on the application for unemployment, to give him the allowance, unless we do not have a job offer for him that is in accordance with his qualification. (56_ PES agency representative)

One of the most important secondary negative effects of this approach is that, due to its persistent use in time, the representatives of the PES become so confident in it, that they do not see outside it, thus becoming blind to the actual needs of the beneficiaries.

One example is the access of the potential beneficiaries to the services provided by PES agencies, who do not have specific preoccupations on recruiting the beneficiaries, but expecting the beneficiaries to know about their services and to be the ones that come towards them.

From other studies that we have done, [it appears that] people know us quite well, we appear not just in the media, but also to job fairs... We appear in partnerships with universities, with academia, where we inform people that they can refer to us, the students, the pupils, absolutely everybody to know they can apply with our institution to search for a job, even if they are not eligible for unemployment benefits, but they don’t have thi notion... Through our partnerships with certain foundations..., but foundations that deal with that kind of persons of course we come towards them. (56_PES agency representative)

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So, the main method of access of beneficiaries to PES agencies would be self-referral and not recruitment.

This generates a low number of cases of disabled unemployed referring themselves to PES, as already presented and discussed in the previous stage of our research.

For the disabled persons it was not the case [to organize job fairs]. We had very few [registerd]... (60_ PES agency representative)

Examples in that area I could say we had very few, seing the small number of [disabled] persons that have came to register with us. (60_ PES agency representative)

It appears that some of the employees of PES agencies genuinely believe that the low number of disabled beneficiaries registered with their agency is actually a normal situation, while others seem to be somehow aware of the situation, motivating it by the lack of knowledge of the potential beneficiaries about the existence of support services for employment, the lack of access to transportation:

They do not know about [the existance of] unemployed without unemployment benefits, they think we are handling just the unemployed [that receive unemployment benefits]. We are handling [all] persons in search for a job and they probably lack this information, that we could help them in that too. (56_ PES agency representative)

The services are all free of charge, including the professional qualification training; also. We reimburse them the expenses with transportation. (That means no expense on behalf of the beneficiary). No, the problem is that they would have to already have the money for transportation and we reimburse at the end of each month, they don’t receive the money in advance. (60_ PES agency representative)

Thus, the access of disabled persons to services provided by PES agencies appears to be a major cause of their low employment rate. Confronted with this topic during the interview, one of the informants tries to find an explanation on the spot, motivating that probably they do have a larger number of disabled persons, but they cannot be accounted for, because they haven’t obtained a handicap certificate.

Regarding the disabled beneficiaries, we have very few registerd with us and the reason for that is the fact that they do not account for their disability. Because they do not go to that expertize commission, where I guess, through that expertize it’s established the handicap degree hold by the person. And from this reason, lacking that justification from the expertise comission, we cannot register them in our database as disabled persons. We confront ourselves with very few people of this type; there are persons who don’t even admit they have a deficiency. They would enter my office, they would sit on the chair and at the very end [of the meeting] they would say „You know, I have a problem”. I have a box in my sheet, if they have medical restrictions... (62_ PES agency representative)

The low access of disabled unemployed to PES agencies is also concerning from another point of view – that of the employers who would want to hire them. One informant, representative of an important employer company with a high number of employees, mentions that the company, in its intention to obey the regulations regarding the quota system (the minimum percentage of disabled employees in the total number of employees), is confronted with great difficulties, because they do not find disabled persons to recruit. Because the local PES agencies were not able to refer the required number of disabled persons, the company contacted and established partnerships with local NGOs in order to reach the potential candidates.

The circle of the disabled persons that can be integrated on the labour market is very restricted. Moreover, it is difficult to access them. We want very much to reach the 10% quota from the total number of employees, but we don’t know where to find them. Is very difficult to reach them. We have some partnerships with foundations and organizations, but even so, we don’t have enough people as we would want to hire. (Representative of a large employer)

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The lack of PES intervention in establishing the connection between the two parties (employee and employer) seems to be not only common, but also accepted by the PES agencies. One of the PES representatives interviewed mentiones how, in more than one accasion, the employers addressed them for accessing the financial incentives established by the law only after they have already identified and hired the disabled employee.

We found ourselves [in situations] when employers came exactly with the person who had the problem (disabled person, n.r.) and they hired her directly, they identified her previously. (56_ PES agency representative)

The PES agencies employees, not being confronted with a large number of disabled unemployed cases, appear to lack the understanding of the unemployment phenomenon among this category, and thus, the preoccupation to engage in interventions addressed to this group. As one of the informants best puts it – Here in the institution, [because of] the fact that I didn’t directly interact with too many [disabled] persons, I didn’t even question myself on how could I help them more. (62_ PES agency representative)

Moreover, the low involvement of the PES agencies in providing sustainable solutions for unemployment among disabled persons seems to be motivated through the perspective that this issue is somewhat outside their area of expertise, since they are not the most relevant institutions dealing with the problems of disabled.

Additionally, the interviews with the PES agencies representatives show that the feed-back collection arrangements after the mediation process has finished almost do not exist:

We do not follow-up. [We watch] Only the employment itself, if the work contract was signed... (Is there a public service that follows up?) No, the monitoring is done only by their organizations, maybe. (60_PES agency representative)

We don’t follow up the person after he was hired. (56_ PES agency representative) This lack of follow-up or monitoring processes does not allow for an evaluation of the

sustainability of the services provided and is not a proper base for reliable information regarding the efficiency of the measures applied.

4. The role of the programs and measures designed to encourage employers hire disabled persons

4.1. Schemes of support and financial incentives for employers of vulnerable

categories

The financial incentives addressed to employers in order to increase employment among vulnerable groups are managed by the PES agencies, as established by the legislation in force. The feed-back of the PES representatives who participated at the interviews shows that the employers find little use for these incentives, and, thus, utilize them seldom.

One explanation for this situation is given by a PES agency representative, who considers that the employers find the procedure too complicated and the obligations regarding the periodical reporting towards them is seen as a supplementary burden that, especially the small employers, are not available to carry.

Once entered on this course of asking some incentives from a public institution, this means also monthly reporting, meaning some extra obligations. The institution gives you some money, but prove me that you have done what you were supposed to with them; that you have kept the employee; that you didn’t get te money from me and one week after you fired him, when the obligation is to keep him for 18 months. And they try to avoid it; that is why I am telling you that the big employers do these hirings, because for them is not a problem, but the small employers don’t want in; for them, any effort, any reporting doesn’t

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exist. Metro, Carrefour, Praktiker1, they hire the disabled persons. They are the biggets

employers of disabled persons. (60_ PES agency representative) One of the main concerns among the small firms would be, in this perspective, the obligation

to ensure the person would still hold the same job for a long period of time. Because the large employers, as for example, the supermarket chains established in Romania by international companies, afford to be more relaxed about the perspective of keeping the jobs of their employees for a bigger amount of time, they are also the ones that would be attracted by these financial incentives.

The interviews with the employers indicate the perspective as accurate. One of the informants interviewed, manager of a small firm who hires disabled persons, mentions he has never used the schemes of financial incentives, because he has no guarantees he can keep the job for his employees for a very long period of time, as other bigger employers can.

When we talk about a well established employer, for example ContiTech2, it would be

foolish for them not to access [the financial incentives] because they, in principle, have long term contracts... I couldn’t afford the risk, because I depend on those [short term] contracts, and if I don’t ensure the continuity [of the work contracts of my employees], what would I do? (57_representative of a small employer firm)

The same informant adds a new nuance to the explanation of the low use of the financial incentives for employers – the fear of misinterpretation of the legislation: in case the perspective of the evaluators (representatives of the public institutions) are not the same as his, a certain expense incurred by his firm would be considered not eligible, and he would have to support the loss.

I am afraid of interpretation; it is possible for us to make a purchase that we consider investment and in fact, it could not be considered as such [by the financing authority].... (57_representative of a small employer firm)

Another informant, representative of a large employer of disabled persons, speaks also about the importance of the organizational culture and engagement of the firms with the concept of social responsibility, giving as an example her own firm, who comes on the market with a different perspective, because of its (international) background with social involvement.

As about the measures designed to encourage firms to hire these [disabled] persons… I think it depends a lot also on the philosophy of the firm. For example, we are a business established originally in France. We are inclined towards social measures. We are interested in hiring them, integrating them on the labor market. If other companies don’t have this philosophy… I don’t know what could be done. (representative of a large firm)

4.2. The quota system

The quota system is a legal provision designed to increase employment for disabled

persons. According to this system, in Romania, the employer who has more than 50 employees, should have among them, at least 4% disabled. In case he does not manage to reach this “quota”, he has two choices: pay a contribution to the state budget, equivalent with an average salary, for every employee he hasn’t hired or, buy, from the same amount, products or services produced or provided by Protected Units employing disabled persons.

It is considered that, in this way, the employment of disabled persons would be stimulated through the support given to the Protected Units. This units have an accreditation procedure that stipulates that a 33% rate of disabled employees is fundamental for receiving the license. Due to this method, the potential competitive advantage the Protected Units loose by hiring disabled

1 International hypermarket chains that are also present in Romania 2 A big firm an important employer, who is active in the Western and North-Western Regions from Romania

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persons (who are maybe not so productive as non-disabled), is re-gained by defining a category of buyers who can be accessed only by them.

As opposed to the first category of measures designed to stimulate employment of disabled (financial incentives), this second measure is based more on negative reinforcement of employers (financial penalties).

Still, the interviews with the representatives of the PES agencies show that employers prefer to pay the penalties or buy the goods or services required to fulfill the quota, rather than hire disabled persons.

(Are there many employers that request for your services, due to this quota system, meaning they ask you specifically for disabled persons?) No, I can say how many have requested subsidies so far, so you can get the picture, just one [employer]. (56_PES agency representative) The explanations given by the employers interviewed show there would be two major

causes for this situation: (1) Employers would want to hire disabled persons, but do not have access to the

candidates that would match with the jobs available in the firm.

We want very much to get close to the [target of] 10% disabled employees, but, as I told you, it’s very complicated. We can’t find them. In these conditions, we purchase products from the protected workshops, to compensate. I think it’s a very good idea: if we cannot help the [in other way], at least we help them like this. (representative of a large firm) This explanation is consistent also with other findings of the research, especially those

regarding the low accessing level of PES services, by the disabled persons. The PES agencies representatives who attended the interviews admit there are times when employers ask them for disabled persons and they cannot provide them with eligible candidates.

If we have in our database persons with the disability required [by the employer], if we have them, then yes [we refer them], but if we don’t, then the employer submits the job offer, where we specify that the respective employer wants disabled persons3. (56_PES

agency representative) The limited number of disabled registered with the local PES agencies could be the cause

for which the employers do not find through the PES their disabled candidates and, because they do not know where else they could find them, they give up and prefer to pay the penalties.

(2) Employers choose not to hire disabled persons because this would generate a too complicated context for them, which they are not willing to manage.

One interview participant (representative of a recruitment firm, working at national level with various types of employers), sees the refusal of the employers to hire disabled persons like a logical and informed choice of a party that has previously weighted the possibilities and has decided to keep things as simple as possible.

Probably he [the employer] feels that… the costs and disadvantages are higher than the benefits… Probably they prefer to pay [the financial penalties] or to buy [from protected workshops]. If they act like this for so many years, I guess that they consider that there are more disadvantages in offering an [appropriate] environment for the disabled employee, taking some risks, compared to [the alternative] of paying that tax. (24_representative of a recruitment company working with various employer companies)

In this perspective, the employer chooses to pay the financial penalties associated with not hiring a certain number of disabled persons (the quota system) rather than hire them and, thus, getting in a complex situation (adapting the workplace, making sure the insertion of the disabled

3 In the vacancies announcement the PES agencies release on a weekly basis, some of the counties use

to add an additional field to the description of the jobs, specifically named “preferred categories” or “additional information” where it is possible to find specifications about the preference of the employer for a specific vulnerable group (for example, disabled); still, it is not a practice used by many PES agencies.

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takes place smoothly etc.) that would consume a lot of his time, time he is not willing to spend outside his area of business.

Comparing the two types of measures addressed to employers of the disabled persons (supportive and punitive measures), it appears that, from the perspective of the employers, two categories of factors contribute to the way in which they understand and interpret their engagement with the employment of disabled persons:

(1) external factors – like legislation and social policies and (2) internal factors – like the availability of the employer to dedicate specific time to the

matter or the firm’s philosophy towards the matter. It is clear that the policy and law makers can only work with the first category an, still, in spite of their good work, the effort could prove without results, due to the interference of the second category of factors. But the results of the interviews show that, due to the low access of disabled persons to the services provided by PES agencies, even the first category of factors is not properly managed – when the target group of these measures is nowhere to be found, is not a surprise the employers choose not to bother anymore with the matter and pay the financial penalties established by law as any other tax obligation they have to comply with.

4.3. The “ability” or “fitness” of disabled persons in facing the job requirements– the general and universal use of medical perspective in Romanian culture

Typically, for any Romanian citizen who enters the job market, the process of employment goes through two different stages of medical evaluation of the person’s work capacity:

- first, the complete application for a job, usually includes, among other documents (proofs of educational attainment, previous work experience etc.), a certificate form the family physician, stating the clinical health status of the person and/or the existence of chronically diseases. The release of such certificate is not specifically enforced by the legislation, but it is rather a popular practice applied by most employers to ask for such certification;

- secondly, before the signing of the work contract, any employee has to pass an examination made by a work medicine doctor (in English literature, the most popular term for this specialty is Occupational physician), finished with the release of a medical certificate stating that the candidate is able/fit to carry out the activities that are specific to his job. The enforcement of the second type of examination is very clearly made by different types of legislation (The Labor Code - Law no. 53 from 2003; the Government Decision no. 355 from 2007 regarding the monitoring of the health status of the employees), that are convergent regarding the result: a person can be employed only if he holds a medical certificate which ascertains the person is able to carry the type of activity he is hired for. Moreover, the main law that regulates work relations (The Labor Code - Law no. 53 from 2003) clearly stipulates that if such a certificate is not issued, the work contract is void (article 27, paragraph 2).

The relevance of the pre-employment medical examination has been amply discussed by various international authors (Pachman, 2009), since the researches regarding its use found it to lack clear effectiveness (Shepherd, 1992) and, at the same time, support potentially biased judgments (de Kort & van Dijk, 1997) regarding the decision to hire a candidate.

However, what is more worrisome about the use of this evaluation, is that the Romanian legislation enforcing this practice affirms that it does so as a response to the requirements of the European Commission regarding the harmonization of implementation of European Legislation (specifically the Directive 89/391/EEC - OSH "Framework Directive" of 12 June 1989 on the introduction of measures to encourage improvements in the safety and health of workers at work).

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Thus, the website of the Romanian Ministry of Work, Family, Social Protection and Elderly Persons), presents the Romanian National Law no. 319 from 2006 regarding work security and health as the response to the European requirements from the Directive 89/391/EEC from 19894.

But, while the Directive mentions clearly its purpose is to “encourage improvements in the safety and health of workers at work” (art. 1, par. 1 of the consolidated version), and its general principles focus on “prevention of occupational risks, the protection of safety and health, the elimination of risk and accident factors, the informing, consultation, balanced participation in accordance with national laws and/ or practices and training of workers and their representatives, as well as general guidelines for the implementation of the said principles” (art. 1, par. 2), showing clearly that its preoccupation lies primarily with the employee and the insurance of his protection, the Romanian legislator has found appropriate to add a new nuance to the concept of “protection”: thus, the Romanian Law no. 319 from 2006 regarding work security and health clearly stipulates that one of the obligations of the employers (related to ensuring the health and security conditions in the work environment and preventing work accidents and professional diseases) is “to hire only persons who, after the medical examination, and, if the case, psychological testing of aptitudes, were found to correspond to the work task they are going to execute” (art. 13, letter “j”).

So, basically, this process of selection based on medical judgments is promoted, under this law, as a “protective measure” for the employee.

In addition, we would add that the European Directive 89/391/EEC from 1989 (the foundation of the Romanian Law no. 319 from 2006), has no specific reference to any type of medical pre-employment examination (or any other type of pre-employment examination whatsoever), and all references to the measures for the prevention of the occupational risks are related to the workplace itself and not to the persons occupying it.

For example, provisions of article 6 (General obligations on employers) stipulate that: - Par. 1: “Within the context of his responsibilities, the employer shall take the measures

necessary for the safety and health protection of workers, including prevention of occupational risks and provision of information and training, as well as provision of the necessary organization and means. The employer shall be alert to the need to adjust these measures to take account of changing circumstances and aim to improve existing situations.” (par. 1)

- Par. 2: “The employer shall implement the measures referred to in the first subparagraph of paragraph 1 on the basis of the following general principles of prevention: avoiding risks (letter a); evaluating the risks which cannot be avoided (letter b): combating the risks at source (letter c); adapting the work to the individual, especially as regards the design of work places, the choice of work equipment and the choice of working and production methods… (let c.) etc.

In a clear misinterpretation of the European recommendations regarding the health and protection of workers, the Romanian legislation allows for the selection of employees, based on the medical model of ability or inability of a person to fulfill the tasks related to a specific job. The main responsibility, in this case, lays with the medical specialist (work medicine doctor), who, at the pre-employment examination, has to decide if the candidate for a position is fit or unfit to fulfill the related tasks.

From the interviews with the representatives of the PES agencies, it appears the medical perspective overrules not only the hiring process, but also the job search process:

They are registered in the database as a person in search for a job, they submit all the documents, copies of the identity papers, diplomas, [documents] from the doctor that specify they are fit for work... automatically, the disabled are restricted... [from] the family

4 The complete list released by the Romanian Ministry of Work with the national legislation adopted in order to ensure the conformity with the European Directives regarding work health and safety can be consulted here http://www.mmuncii.ro/j33/index.php/ro/legislatie/munca2/securitate-si-sanatate-in-munca

http://www.mmuncii.ro/j33/index.php/ro/legislatie/munca2/securitate-si-sanatate-in-munca

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doctor... in general, if they attend a training program, they are required to submit [documents] from the work medicine doctor (occupational physician, n.r.). It’s a problem at disabilities, there is mandatory to provide the notice from the work medicine doctor. (23_PES agency representative)

In order to registered with us, one of the documents needed [in the application process] is a certificate which attests the state of health, the work capacity. When he comes with a certificate from the family doctor which states that he is able to work, but partially, we then ask for details, even if he doesn’t bring a handicap certificate. (56_ PES agency representative)

Thus, the disabled person who accesses the employment services provided by PES agencies has to document his disability and declare his work “limitations” from the beginning of the process. Moreover, after the medical expert had provided the documentation about the person’s “limitations”, the employees of PES agencies act in their capacity of (secondary) experts and make subsequent judgements regarding the work “limitations” of the person, basing their further recommendations and counseling on them.

In the moment that you see that he has just partial [work] capacity and you see that he has [mentioned in the documents] a medical problem, you start going into details; he doesn’t get to counseling without passing through us and us finding about the problems he has. We have to keep in mind that limitation. (56_ PES agency representative)

Furthermore, their role of mediators on the labour market puts them in a sensitive position: they do not feel responsible only towards the disabled unemployed (their beneficiary), but also towards the potential employer. The responsibility felt towards the employer is put into action by sharing with him the information about the candidate’s disability – somehow, because the mediator does not want to make the employer feel cheated in the process of mediation, he feels the obligation to inform him regarding the potential applicant’s disability.

For the person who has disabilities, we first have to lobby with the respective employer and tell him what the problem is, what problem she has... counseling and mediation go hand in hand and you cannot do one without the other... We had two disabled persons that we managed to place on the labour market ouside the country; the employer was made aware of the disability the person has and how she can interact with people and agreed and the person was accepted as an employee. (56_ PES agency representative)

At the same time, the responsibility felt towards the disabled beneficiary, conducts the mediator towards the path of “protecting” his disabled client and deciding for him – thus, sometimes the boundaries of counseling and mediation are crossed, and the mediator jumps right to decision-making, in the name of the applicant. One testimony shows how this process works:

I know excatly what the request of the employer is and, on the other hand, I know what every person [beneficiary] is able to do. In some cases, I don’t even need to send him to that job [for the interview] because the man cannot do these things from the begining. (56_ PES agency representative)

The informant describes that, basically, he is the one making the decision whether the disabled applicant would be able to comply or not with the job requirments and subsequently chooses not to inform about the job vacancy the persons who, in his, perspective, would not handle the tasks.

However, it seems that this decision-making process poses some problems from the perspective of what is confidential or not about the applicant’s health status, since, the same informant, later in the interview mentions that, in the case of a HIV infected person (medical condition for which a person can obtain a handicap certificate), he will leave the decision to the candidate himself whether to inform the employer or not about this condition.

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I cannot inform [the employer] which is the diagnostic, I cannot give this information, they are personal. I cannot inform an employer that X person has Y disease... you have to inform the employer which is the disability of the person, but if there are disgnostics like HIV or AIDS, this is a confidential information and is the option of the person if they tell about it or not... Things will be found out, but most of the persons that have a medical problem know and are aware about the fact that they have to inform the employer and they do that. (56_ PES agency representative)

Meanwhile, from the perspective of the employers, it seems also natural to be in the position of evaluating the capacities (mainly physical) of a candidate and make their judgments, based on this evaluation.

The judgments could be related to the decision of hiring (or not) the candidate who is physically fit to handle the job tasks

Is a physical activity that requires a certain physical construction to help you do your job. And, then, it’s important [for the applicant] to have a construction… it enters in the physical evaluation of the person… through observation. And afterwards, through completing the application, a recommendation, a certificate from the family doctor that he is able to work… it is important [for the applicant] to have a certain [physical] structure which to… that shouldn’t be frail. (24_ representative of a recruitment company working with various employer companies)

Or could relate to the decision of choosing the appropriate tasks for the needs and capabilities of the disabled employee

Among difficulties, I would mention also the job profile – here, effort is needed, distributive attention is needed. We have to be careful at disability and at each position individually… We try to find for each [person] a job that is adapted to her needs. (representative of a large employer company)

The line between the two possible approaches is very thin and the most confusing fact about it relates to the explanation regarding the “protection” of the employee: he could be protected through his placement to a workplace adapted to his needs or he could be protected through not hiring him at all, because he is not medically “fit” for the job. Ironically, the Romanian legislation allows for both approaches to co-exist, so if falls under the responsibility and inclination of the employer which one to choose.

In addition, one PES agency representative mentions he experienced situations in which employers accessing their services would require referral of candidates having a certain type of disability (probably perceived as not interfering with job tasks):

At some point in time, we had employers that hired people with disabilities and they would mention exactly what kind of disability each person should have... but these things happened very seldom. (62_PES agency representative)

So, in the traditional process of job accessing by any Romanian citizen, there are a lot of parties involved, which have or feel the obligation to establish the medical or physical “fitness” of the candidate for a certain workplace:

- the family physician who releases the medical certificate ascertaining the health status of the persons and / or the chronically diseases he has;

- the employer who has to decide, based on observation, if the person is physically fit to fulfil the job tasks;

- the occupational physician (work medicine doctor, in Romania), who has the legal responsibility to evaluate and certificate that the candidate is fit for the job tasks.

For the disabled persons, additionally, another filter intervenes: in case he accesses mediation services provided by PES agencies, he will be additionally evaluated by the agency personnel working with him and directed towards the vacancies the evaluators consider would suit him best from the perspective of his “limitations”.

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4.4. The focus on benefits – a major hindrance in the employment of disabled persons

Towards the end of the interviews, all participants were asked to share their perspective on the most important barriers that hinder the employment of disabled persons on the Romanian labor market and also the solutions that should be applied, from their point of view, in order to tackle these barriers.

One of the most popular and largely agreed upon topic, when addressing this question, related to the fundamental role the financial benefits have on keeping the disabled persons chained to their current situation, feeding dependency and preventing the persons to evolve from their status of “assisted persons”.

The informants use their professional experience or personal opinions to explain and exemplify how the current focus on the social benefits interacts with the person’s will to access the labour market.

While some of them are considered to lack information about the possibility to cumulate disability allowance and the salary, without affecting one of them - They are under the impression that they will lose that allowance if they decide to work. (60_PES agency representative), others are seen as being discouraged by their families in finding employment – Nor their families are educated to understand that they can work and have a normal life... they keep them at home; he has 270 lei (approx. EUR 60) and if he has severe [handicap] he has even more money and then no chance for them to send him somewhere. Only when they [the parents] get old they face the fact. (57_ PES agency representative) and others are just seen as making a rational choice of staying at home and receiving the benefits instead of going to work and earn their living – I was at a meeting with HIV infected persons and they were saying: „Why should I get employed when I receive 10 millions monthly (1000 lei, equivalent of approx. EUR 220) without doing anything? And then, why should I get employed, when I receive medicine, absolutely everything is free?” And the allowance is pretty high compared to the salary they would receive if getting employed. (56_ PES agency representative)

Earning an amount of money relatively rapidly and without additional effort is seen by the PES agency representatives as the “root of all evils” when talking about unemployment, not only among the disabled, but also among the general population. One informant gives as an example his personal experience with the problem of motivating the unemployed to take part in their activity, in a period when the professional qualification trainings offered by his agency encountered competition among the other services providers who, in addition to the services, also offered a subsidy to the participants. Because of these subsidies offered by other organizations, the number of beneficiaries requiring the services of his agency decreased.

You know when I felt that? When our professional qualification trainings, where we offered no subsidies, but just the reimbursement of the transportation costs, [competed with] the option of the unemployed to participate in I don’t know what project who offered the diploma and also a subsidy that was an immediate income. (60_ PES agency representative)

In this perspective, it’s only natural that the first solution that comes in the informants’ minds is reducing the amount of social benefits, in order to motivate the persons to find for a different source of income.

The unemployment benefits, in our country are fixed, on the entire duration of provision, while in other [European] states, they are given a maximum amount at the begining and then they force you to look for a job [by decreasing the amount]. (22_PES agency representative)

In fact, not the amount of the social benefits (which are not very consistent) seems to be the real problem perceived by the specialists interviewed, but rather the difference between the level of the social benefits received and the level of the salary one would receive, if giving up the social benefits. The explanation given by the representative of a social services provider, responsible

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with the allocation of social benefits for vulnerable categories, could shed some light on the perception of the specialists working with vulnerable categories, about the role of the social benefits in feeding dependency.

To be socially assisted forever, this is not a solution. The amounts are not very high, but I took the time to calculate the amount one family of five – mother father and 3 children – were receiving from the minimum guaranteed income and the allowances of the children – somewhere around 774 lei monthly (approx. EUR 170), while one of my colleagues, higher studies graduate, has a salary of 850 lei (approx. EUR 190). I don’t find it normal for a socially assisted to receive almost as much as a person who comes to work daily, eight hours a day, I really don’t find it normal. (38_ representative of a local public social services provider)

In this light, where the income of a „socially assisted” person or family is comparable with the income of a highly qualified worker, the various nuances of dependency encouragement are really shown. This type of calculation may have a serios impact on the professional conduct the specialist has towards the beneficiary of his services, especially if he perceives himself of the actual donor (in his capacity of tax payer) of the resources used to finance the social benefits received by that particular beneficiary, who, in return, does not pay any taxes. In this situation, the principles of social solidarity suffers an important reinterpretation for the service provider.

If we add to this equation the considerable case-load the service worker has and the state of burn-out it can bring, the permanent fear of not taking the wrong decision, which could bring financial penalties to him, the constant law changes that do not allow them to trust in a modus operandi validated by their experience, we could probably grasp the picture of the work environment the specialists providing services to the vulnerable groups have to face every day.

One possible solution to this situation is suggested by one of the participants at the interviews:

There would be another approach: to give up all that is handicap degree, so we would not relate to people as they were handicapped, not to lable them like that anymore.... Not to pay to the person the [benefits resulted from the] handicap certificate, but in exchange, the money you would be left with to be invested in reabilitation centers... to make reabilitation and at the same time to open up jobs to them, where they could earn their living. You don’t give them an allowance anymore, about which he says he is begging for, but provide him with a workplace, adapted to his condition... But that takes a lot of work. (39_representative of a local social services provider, in charge of the employment assistance program)

This change of the paradigm the informant proposes is not ony beneficial, but necessary if a sustainable increase of the quality of services offered to disabled persons is desired.

Shifting the focus of the support from benefits to services would bring various types of improvements, among them the most important being the quality of life of the disabled beneficiaries.

High quality services would foster individualization of intervention, increase of the person’s self-esteem, improved involvement of the specialists and, overall, a higher social and labour market integration of the disabled persons.

But such a change would require from the policy makers a long term vision and the availability to take on a high political risk, because it would involve taking something from the target group (the social benefits) before giving them something better in return (social services).

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4.5. Conclusions - The system of protection and support for the disabled persons – A structure governed by fragmentation and parallelism

The entire system of protection and support for the disabled persons is governed by fragmentation and parallelism.

The most important arguments are: - lack of consistence in defining and identifying the situation of the beneficiary in the text

of the law: the national law regarding the functioning of the social work system (Law no. 292 from 2011) uses the term “disabled persons”, while the sectoral law for the protection and promotion of disabled persons’ rights (Law no. 448/2006) uses the term “persons with handicap”. The direct effect of this distinction is that, because all the persons with a handicap are considered disabled, but not all the disabled persons are considered as having a handicap (the handicap is recognized if the person goes through the process of assessment for recognizing her disability), even if the disabled persons would be entitled to a series of benefits and services provided based on the social work law (Law no. 292 from 2011), they do not actually receive these, as long as they do not obtain their handicap certificate and handicap degree (mentioned by the Law no. 448/2006);

- parallelism and superposition in accessing different types of financial support: in granting the according to our current legislation, a “handicapped person”, even if she has not a job record at all, is entitled to receive both the handicap allowance (as established by Law no. 448/2006), which is provided from the state budget, as a non-contributive social benefit and also an invalidity pension (as established by Law no. 263/2010, subsequently modified in 2010, 2012, 2013 and 2015), which is actually a contributive social benefit. The direct effect is the discrimination the law allows between two types of disabled persons – those that are informed (for ex., because they are connected to various networks and can access the information about their rights and, thus, can access two types of support) and those that are unaware of the law provisions (for ex., who live in isolated areas, or with small access to information) and don’t access any type of support;

- lack of coherence in legislation governing the provision of support, which impacts on the functioning of the institutions in charge of enforcing the legislative provisions and ultimately leads to lack of coherence and different interpretations of law in the various measures implemented at local level. For example, law 448/2006, for the protection and promotion of the rights of persons with handicap, at articles 42 and 43, establishes that the persons with a severe handicap are allowed to choose between hiring a personal assistant or receiving a monthly indemnity, additional to the handicap allowance; the value of this indemnity (the law states at article 43) is “in the same amount as the net salary of a debutant (as in junior, n.r.) social worker with undergraduate studies that works in the social work units in the budgetary sector”. Actually, according to a pre-existing law, the law regarding the statute of the social worker (Law no. 466/2004), articles 2 and 6, the social work profession requires as mandatory the graduation of a higher studies program, so a person cannot be appointed as social worker if she has completed just undergraduate studies. Moreover, in the procedures applied by the National College of Social Workers regarding the granting of the professional competence levels, the references to the graduation of a higher studies program reinforce this condition (higher qualification diploma) as incremental to obtaining the license for the professional practice, even from entry-level (debutant, or junior social worker). The direct effect of this mismatch is the fact the art. 43 of the Law no. 448/2006, legally has no object for comparison of the benefit stipulated at article 42.

- lack of a consistent vision, backed by a centralized, homogenous approach in dealing with or managing the multiple issues associated with disability, in Romania: every agency or institution which carries out activities that are relevant for the field of disability has its own database, mission, approach and objectives, rarely communicating with one another in order to exchange information or to collaborate, and this is happening mainly because they lack convergence in their activity, in spite of the fact that their joint actions should lead to the same

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result. With the Agency for Persons with Disabilities5 we had no interaction, no intersection. (60_PES gency representative) (The County General Direction for Child Protection and Social Assistance is the primary institution at county level that has the database with the persons for which a handicap certificate was released. Do you have a colaboration with this institution?) No. (56_ PES gency representative) The most relevant local institutions that could be collaborating and joining their databases (but are not doing it currently) are:

The County General Directions for Child Protection and Social Assistance – the institution that releases the handicap certificate. It is preoccupied with the person’s status on the labour market just at the moment of the assessment (that happens mainly because among the criteria for granting the certificate, there are some related to the income sources of the applicant); keeping or loosing the employee status is not very relevant for this institution (and they do not collect data regarding this aspect), unless the re-assessment has to be made; in case the handicap certificate is permanent, the institution will no longer have contact with the disabled person and, thus, it will no longer have information about her status on the labour market.

The Local PES agencies – the most relevant institution in managing employment related issues. It holds statistics about the number of persons with handicap that are in search for a job just to the extent these persons refer themselves to it in order to ask for its services. But, usually (according to the accounts of the interview participants and also to the results of the previous research stage), the disabled persons, even if in search for a job, do not refer themselves to these agencies. Even if, in the situation they have registered in their database a number of (self-refered) disabled persons, if some of these manage to get employed, things are not monitored further. The person can lose her job the second day and, if she does not refer to the PES agency again, they will never find out about the change in her ocupational status.

The Regional Directions of Public Finance – could have some reliable statistics about the number of persons with a handicap certificate that are employed, at county/regional level, to the extent these persons/ their employers would use the legislative provisions and, based on the handicap certificate, would request tax exemptions, but this provision is applicable only to persons with severe or marked handicap, and the handicap certificates are „visible” only if the person chooses to use the legislative provisions.

The only common aspect in the enactment, organizing, and functioning of the system is the

focus on providing benefits, as opposed to providing social services. The focus on financial benefits brings a major problem in discussion – the “fugue” of

responsibility regarding the decision of granting or not granting these financial benefits associated with the “handicapped” status:

- if they decide to grant the financial support, they could be suspected of being influenced in their decision (by bribery or by pity);

- if they decide not to grant the financial support, the unsatisfied petitioner could appeal to higher institutions and get his justice and, if he is proved right, this “justice” can turn against those who have not given it in the first place.

5 The name is used improperly; the informant refers either to the National Authority for Persons with

Handicap (2003-2010), the General Direction for the Protection of Persons with Handicap (2010-2015) or to the newly established national Authority for Persons with Disabilities (2015), all three of them being consecutive forms of the same institution – the central authority, specialized on elaborating and managing nationally policies and interventions targeting to disabled persons

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Another important effect brought by the systematic focus on social benefits, as opposed to social services, consists in the entrapment of disabled persons in their current status, of dependent on the welfare benefits.

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5. Education for special needs students. The dilemma between segregated or

inclusive school.

We designed this chapter because of the obvious link between education and employment.

As one of our informants’ mentioned:

“Education is the most important predictor of the future employment. A low level of

education is the main obstacle for people with disabilities willing to enter the labor market

and not the lack of accessibility, or the lack of openness from the employer, or other things

you could suspect. It seems that the most important factor is education for people who,

because of disability or other causes like weak family support or a certain cultural context

or lack of information didn’t achieve too much school and this limits also their access on

the labor market”

Education is a decisive domain in preparing the young students for the future life in the

society. It offers the main abilities for a future profession, provides social skills for human

interrelations, and offers the social and political tools for adapting to the community life and for

developing the society. It offers knowledge and understanding and the education system can be

described, in Pierre Bourdieu’s terms6, as a «reproduction tool» used by the society to assure its

continuity.

In this perspective, the barriers in the admission of the disabled students in the mainstream

education, means not only to refuse them the common integration in a fundamental social

institution, excluding and segregating this category from the start from their normal social inclusion

process. It means also depriving these youngsters from a fundamental citizen’s rights, the

constitutional right to participate in the educational system on a geographical base as any other

young student of the same age.

In the previous phase of our study, we collected many testimonies from disabled people

about the barriers encountered in their access to regular educational institutions at all levels

(primary, secondary and higher education). In the actual phase we discussed with representatives

of the school system and some school administrators trying to catch their perspective on this

issue and some possible explanations for the dysfunctions signaled by our disabled subjects.

In this chapter we present the educational policy and attitudes toward students with

disabilities as presented by the school representatives we have interviewed and some of their

experiences in the day to day activity with these students that they used for supporting their

explanations.

What could be noticed as a general characteristic of all interviews is that the former

“medical” model present in the communist regime with the segregated schools based on the

“pedagogy of defectology” is much more nuanced nowadays even if it is not totally abandoned.

The approach used by most of our respondents is more oriented to “inclusive school” model. But

still the common attitude is more about “educational needs” and “experts’ intervention” and not at

all about “human rights” and “citizenship”.

Also we found that teachers, administrators and other categories of experts are sometimes

very critical about the system and the official policy and they are not at all obedient executors of

the government’s rules and decisions. This could be an effect of the interview subject situation,

6 Bourdieu,Pierre Jean Claude Passeron, (1990) Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture, Sage Publications Inc,

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but we found them truly concerned and genuinely disposed to take position in favor of their

students in unfair situations in the humanistic spirit of “social justice”.

The chapter is organized under the problematic issued from the former informants’

reporting but also according to the new problematic from the present interviews’ subjects in the

following topics:

Barriers in admission of the disabled students in mainstream schools (at all levels).

Where are they coming from?

Education for special educational needs students.

Competitiveness perspective: schools like enterprises are competition oriented

and disabled students cannot play their role.

Education for citizenship?

5.1. Barriers in admission of the disabled students in mainstream schools (at all

levels). Where are they coming from?

As we mentioned already, in the former communist regime the “defectology” pedagogy

was dominant: mainstream education was intended for “normal” able body students and the

disabled ones had to be enlisted in segregated “special schools” organized on the disability type

criteria. The reason was “special educational needs” and the staff in these segregated schools

was specially trained to deal with these needs. Almost all the conditions were different: the

curricula, the teaching methods and materials, the class organization (reduced number of

students and teaching time, increased duration of brakes and many others). Also the “rights” of

the partners of the educational process were different – “rights” meaning the material benefits one

is entitled to – the salaries of the staff were 15% higher than in mainstream education and students

received free meals, free accommodation and free equipment’s. The reverse of this needs’

assistance perspective was the total exclusion of the disabled people from the society. Their

special education was designed to train them toward specific vocational careers and after

graduation to employ them in special protected units, so that their contacts with the mainstream

society were almost absent.

After the dissolution of the communist regime came also the dissolution of this well-

organized (but segregated) special education. Under the pressure of the parents but also because

of the international opening of the Romanian society new models appeared in the education

system. In the 1990’s the new model became “the inclusive school” meaning the integration of

the students with “special educational needs” in the mainstream education. It has been a difficult

process, consuming a lot of efforts, time and money but the results were discouraging. Very few

disabled students succeeded to be integrated in the general education and these happy cases

happened in the prestige schools with dedicated teachers and mainly because of the huge efforts

of the parents. The most part of the disabled students had to address the old special schools

(much less organized and financed than they used to be) to get vocational training for the special

protected units that disappeared in the meantime.

But let’s get to the informants’ stories.

One social sciences teacher highly graded (PhD in Sociology) and former scholar

inspector tells us:

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“I think it’s very stupid to dissolve the special education (because there have been some

attempts…). And this because of financial pressures because the costs are too big. And

then there is an inclusion trial. But there are children that cannot be ever included. If we

take the alternative of equal access to the education for everybody we have to go in the

west and to have private education. But here the dissolution of the special education is a

crime. What can we do with a child in the fifth grade with an IQ of 30? What to do with him

if the education is mandatory? “

This teacher is in fact signaling some important challenges of the inclusion education

initiatives in Romania. As we mentioned earlier “inclusive school” is present since more than 15

years in the programmatic documents of the educational system and the idea became more

pregnant after 2007 since Romania is member of the EU. But the concept cannot cover all

situations and it has not to be implemented in an exclusivist manner. It’s true that it have been

some pressures to close the special education units in favor of the inclusive schools for a number

of reasons. The teachers there are highly trained and the schools have an exceptional number of

experts employed (psychologists, speech therapists, social workers, educators, kinetics-

therapists, and many others). They are working fewer hours than in mainstream schools and are

better paid (15% more).

All these and the students’ exceptional benefits (free meals, accommodation and

equipment’s) have increased the cost for this special education while the general education

budget is diminishing because of financial constraints. There were also some rumors about poor

parents applying for the special education facilities for their not quite disabled children!

In fact the special schools are maintained in Romania and for diminishing the stigma

associated with these segregated educational units they are now called “Centers for Inclusive

Education” but in fact their inclusive activities reside mainly I the fact that children are no longer

staying home. They are brought to these schools and they can socialize with other disabled

children as them but they still remain excluded from the mainstream society and education

system.

Another big challenge is about the diploma the special schools provide to their disabled

graduates. For a long period when the vocational schools were also popular in the mainstream

education, the graduation certificates from the special schools were the same as those from the

mainstream vocational school attesting vocational abilities that were enough similar.

But after the dissolution of the vocational system in the mainstream education, almost all

the students go for high school studies (even if only two thirds of them pass their baccalaureate).

So the special schools graduate certificate is not at all similar with others diplomas and do not

permit any further inclusion in the education or labor market.

And finally, because of the obligation that every child should graduate 10 degrees, the

special schools have to adapt their curricula to the mainstream curricula, forcing the intellectual

disabled children to follow lessons of abstract science or foreign language probably beyond their

possibilities and without any pedagogical acquisitions (probably also because of the improper

teaching methods).

Our interviewee gives us eventually some solutions in the end but he is underlying that he

is no longer in a decision position (because he is not member in the “right” political party he says):

“First of all we should clearly decide who is for a special school and what the offer in the

special school is! Because the curricula never changed in the special schools: students

with intellectual disabilities have to have two foreign languages, many hours of

mathematics, physics and chemistry on the week! Let’s be serious they cannot speak

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Romanian! So they have to think what they can and have to offer to these children:

occupational therapy, ludotherapy and so on, and not physics, chemistry any many hours

of foreign languages.”

Speaking about access in primary education for disabled children, one teacher in a

mainstream high school, but having also experience in special education, told us:

“In the primary education the teacher is very important. If he/she accepts… For instance I

know from my kid that in his class is a little girl with sensorial deficiencies. Of course with

prothesis (audio) and she graduated with all her colleagues. The teacher was much

implicated and she made us, the parents, to accept this because parents opinion is very

important, I can tell you from my experience. When there were problems with a child, the

others’ parents came to school and protested that he disturbed the class. But I can tell you

that in 8 out of 10 cases the parents are set by the teacher. So there are not the parents

that don’t accept, the teacher doesn’t accept. And then the scholar inspectorate

commission orient the child to another school. When I worked as inspector I found another

school where the child felt accepted. I knew some brave teachers who were very open!

This was very important for the child to feel accepted…”

It looks very clear that the teachers and school administrators have the possibility to accept

or deny the students access in the classroom. And there are procedures that assist them in this

respect. So, if the school administrators and the parents cannot find a solution by transferring the

child in another class or in another school, the parent is oriented to ask help from other scholar

authority. In fact, if there is a referral about a maladaptation to the school requirements from a

child, the case is taken by the CJRAE (County Center for Resources and Educational Assistance).

This center has a special commission made of professionals (psychologist, social worker,

and physician) and also the headmasters from the special schools in the county. They are

evaluating the case (at least the file of the youngster) and take a decision, usually by orienting

him/her to the proper special school (or toward the special school with more free places). Usually

the parents are involved in the process and there are situations when they don’t want their children

to be sent to a special school. Our informants told us that this is not mainly because of stigma

associated with these special schools but because of the fact that the handicap allowance of the

children should be given to the special boarding school!

If the parent is not willing to enlist his child to the special school then he can keep him/her

home and ask for itinerant support teacher. They are delivering home education with each child

but no so many hours. In fact their weekly norm is 16 hours and they usually have 8-10 children

so they do at most 2 hours per week with each student, the progresses being very difficult. But

usually in these cases one can find mainly children with severe mental retardation that parents

cannot afford to send to any institution.

So the access to the school may be blocked by the school itself, if teachers are not able

or not willing to make special efforts with a child. Some prestigious schools have also other ways

to accept only the best performer students. One teacher from such a prestigious school told us:

“First of all, education legislation is the one that block the access to high-school “X”.

Because if we analyses the way one cold arrive in this school it is clear that it’s about

average. The average in the last four years (grades 5-8) and the national evaluation. It is

clear: we had the last admission average 9.20 (out of 10). And this was the weakest result

so you can see that the level of the requirements is very high. So it’s clear that a student

with disabilities from the mainstream education with or without support structures didn’t

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have the possibility to reach this level. So, it is not the school who denies the access of

these students, the school is open. We don’t have such problems, you can see from the

voluntary activities we organize. The school is open to inclusion, integration and so on…

The problem is legislation.”

The teacher has his point here, we will come back about this competitive education later

in the chapter. But this performance-based admission process is undoubtedly a barrier at least

for the intellectual disability students.

If these barriers are active, there are also good initiatives and clear pathways toward

inclusive education. Another informant, director of a vocational high school, told us about an

interesting experiment:

“We were the first school in Romania that proposed the integration of a number of classes

of special education in our mainstream education vocational school in 1993. We continued

this project for 15 years and children with intellectual disabilities had achieved vocational

training for professions that we used to offer: tailoring, shoe-making and mechanic –

assistants for textile industry. There were many classes, once we had 10 parallel classes,

more than 250 students with disabilities each year. The teaching staff was our normal staff

but they have had some special trainings for working with special educational needs. Their

curricula was adapted: they had more practical activities and less theory classes. The

practical abilities for real work were more important and we succeeded to orient them

toward profile factories which employed most of them. Unfortunately, six years ago the

project stopped, these classes returned to the special education units that were

considered as more experienced for them.

We didn’t experience any problem working with these students, the schools prestige didn’t

suffer at all; we have been considered an open school delivering services for every child

not only for the smartest kids. The teachers also were satisfied because wages were 15%

increased and they had to work with classes with 8 to 15 students (compared with 28 in

mainstream education)”

Because of this experience related by the high school director we considered him a promoter

of the inclusive education. But when we asked about his opinion about where is the best place for

a disabled student: special education units or mainstream schools, he gave us a more nuanced

answer:

“I think that there should be a clear distinction between the disability degrees. Not all the

disabled children can be included, and especially those with severe and accentuated

problems. Indeed they could create conflicts and they need support personal. But there

are students with limited intellect that can face an educational program if the conditions

are adapted and the curriculum is differentiated. The teachers could offer a more relaxed

knowledge volume that they should accumulate. We have observed that in this way they

integrate very well. Finally they are adopted by the mainstream student groups and it’s a

real pleasure to see how well they cooperate. For those with a small handicap integration

is very possible while for those with difficult problems I think the best thing is to be

surveyed by the specialists.”

Also the access barriers we discussed about seem acting differently in the Waldorf schools.

One of the teacher from this kind of school told us:

47

“To us everything is open. That’s why we accept also children with special needs if they

fulfill the criteria we have. If he/she can manage he/she stays. We adapt the curricula for

them and of course, we have special needs children, even now we have one in the 10th

grade. We have special needs children who graduated 12th grade and they even passed

the baccalaureate. So it is not mercy, we don’t give him grades without real acquisitions

and the proof is the most difficult exam that they passed: the baccalaureate!”

And the same teacher, having experience in the special education system, gave us his views

and possible solutions to the inclusive approach with disabled students in the mainstream

schools:

“About these children who comes in a mainstream school I think that they should need a

support teacher, who could stay with him and work with him beyond the official program.

He should do rehabilitation, depending of his disability, or kineto-therapy, cognitive

stimulation, speech therapy and it is clear that the school should have a variable number

of staff. But this would increase very much the number of staff, I think maybe more staff

then students. But if you need to work with a child all the time you need many people. If

you live the child alone in the class to do by himself he will not cope. So I think it should

be a mix between the mainstream and special schools with an important increase in the

number of personnel.”

After expressing these opinions we considered, as in the case of the vocational high

school headmaster, that this teacher is a partisan of the inclusive education and an opponent of

the special schools. But, later in the interview, when we addressed the parents’ attitudes he

stated:

“That’s why I say again that things should be done step by step. The main problem lays

with the parents. The parents have great expectations: they want their children to write, to

know. When they realize that children cannot do that, they go to experts. But the main

fight is between the parents and themselves, with the specialists, with the teachers until

he realizes that what he ask is too much and too fast. So, I understood after my experience

that the special school is necessary, because the mainstream school remain mainstream!”

In fact what he means is that the mainstream school is more impersonal and that teachers

are asking a lot of work from children without adapting their activities, methods or requirements

to the special way in which some students learn or react. The special school is friendlier with

disability, taking care of the special conditions of students. The parents should know better the

condition of their children and should be more responsible in offering what’s best for them.

5.2. Education for special educational needs students

But how are the special schools organized for special needs students. One of our

informants, teacher in a special school gave us details about her activity:

“As I told you I am a morning teacher, qualified in special psycho-pedagogy, and I do

recuperatory therapies with 5 children. Here there are different activities: sensorial

education, reading, writing, communication, elements of applied mathematics, and others

like people and society, in fact what a child in mainstream education would do but adapted

to the particularities and level of development of each child. So we follow a curricula, I am

48

following the one for children with severe and associated mental deficiency. The program

is from 8 to 12 and my colleague educator from after lunch till 5 in the afternoon. The

morning therapies are more consistent and more stimulating and in the afternoon the

activities are more group oriented with games, group interaction and relaxation to learn

them to socialize. Iwill be their teacher until they finish 10 grades (now they are all in the

6th grade). After graduating they could eventually work in a protected workshop but not on

the free labor market. I went out with them, I was at the theatre, at the botanical garden

and they behaved, they faced well the new situations. Parents are not taking them out

because they feel embarrassed for the eventual unpleasant moments but I am not, and I

am proud of the progress I succeeded with them. My objective is to make them

independent and to learn how to manage alone in most life situations.”

Our informant was defending the special education as we expected her to do, but finally

she underlined the advantages. Personalized activities and more time dedicated for each student

seem the most important. The main requirement for a good education was in her opinion the

permanent accompaniment of the child with special needs. She insisted that the mainstream

education would be possible only if the child would have a “shadow” to accompany him all the

time and to be a mediator between him and the class demands. The big number of 30 students

from the ordinary classes don’t permit the teachers to work individually or in group, the frontal

approach is the only possibility. This is not perceived as a deficiency of the mainstream education

but as an advantage of the special school.

“If a child has not the potential to go in a mainstream class, you frustrate the child, I know

many examples. A child put in an environment with too many stimulus, become very

inhibited, introverted and with many frustrations and didn’t develop well. I would not

eliminate the special schools because they are necessary. They have specialized

teachers, many adapted teaching materials. But for those children that can manage in the

mainstream schools, I would hire more staff to acompagny each child, because the human

resource is not enough!”

If we agree that the special education has its advantages, the integration into labour

market and society remains problematic. After graduating a special school one cannot go back

and recuperate the normal education process and he/she is not habilitated to a vocational career

either. So even if the person is more abled to fit into the society they have not the possibility to do

so:

“I am afraid that after graduating a special school, one cannot reenter the mainstream

school. Most of them because they don’t have the proper age, some because they are not

interested, I think. They wont to go and work or just think that the school is over…” told us

the teacher from the Waldorf high school with experience in special education. And he has

a point here because the Romanian education system requires a certain age for being

enlisted in each school grade. After deposing that age limit one has very few chances to

recover and follow the normal education path.

And also the society seems not very prepared (not any more) to deal with the graduates

from special schools. The same teacher mentions:

“I think that those who graduated the special schools used to have perspectives to be

employed in a factory like “workshop for invalids” as it used to be in the time of Ceausescu.

49

I think in that time there were special schools integrated with this kind of factories. I don’t

say we should do such a school now, but the labor market also should open, as some

employers are looking for work force from the former prison mates because is more cheap.

It used to be also from people with disabilities, but now there are very few. If there should

be a facility, the schools would orient toward this, because schools are very flexible. We

would need a cooperation between the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Labor but

unfortunately nobody is taking care of this!”

In any county there is a Center for Resources and Educational Assistance created in 2011

by Order of Ministry of Education (5555/2011). This center is financed by the County Council and

is methodologically coordinated by the County Scholar Inspectorate. This center is not

coordinating special schools (Centers for Inclusive Education) but they are providing psycho-

educational support for teachers in mainstream and special schools.

Starting with the year 2012 these centers are doing scholar and professional orientation

for students with special educational needs by the Service of Scholar Evaluation and Orientation

and a Commission where are represented the headmasters of special schools, the Inspector for

special education, The Director of Child Protection County Service, and some professionals.

There is a methodology for educational evaluation and inclusion of children (Order of Ministry of

Education No. 6552/2011) which provides the orientation of children toward types of schools

without specifying the school name or location. And the parent’s duty is to take his child to what

school he pleases, corresponding to the commission’s indications. Officially the parent can

choose between different types of school if there is the possibility to have support structures.

These are support teachers, itinerant support teachers, counselor teachers, speech therapist and

other therapies provided by special schools or other centers in the afternoon or on an afterschool

schedule.

Unfortunately these services are not very accessible for countryside students because the

special schools are located in cities, counselors and speech therapists are serving a very large

number of students (about 800) and as we mentioned support and itinerant support teachers can

help about 8 students each and their numbers are very limited.

The mainstram education is eventually an option for sensorial and locomotion disabled

students only. A director from County Center for Educational Resources and Assistance told us:

«Those who have really a disability, a handicap, they go to a special school; theose with

smaller deficiencies have prosthesis and they could go to mainstream schools. Especially

those with sensory and physical deficiencies they don’t have integration problems. They

are easier to include, to be accepted and there is no discrimination or marginalization. But

speaking about children with more complex problems, with mental deficiency or other

associated problems, we have now a more complex evaluation than 3 years ago when

there were only IQ. We do now 4 items evaluation: medical, psychological, educational

and social. If for instance we have a child with an IQ of 76 but who is living with her 80

years grandmother because his parents are working abroad and are also divorced, and

this child has many emotional traumas and cannot be supported to learn home we have

to help him in his superior interest. We orient him to a school with support structures and

we will facilitate her access there…”

The support teacher institution could be an answer to the real inclusion of a disabled

student in the mainstream education system. At least this is the legal perspective, a perspective

that accompanied the change from 2011 of Romanian education. The support teacher is providing

50

a number of services for helping the inclusion of a child having a scholar orientation certificate

from the county commission we mentioned above. He is supposed to develop different activities

like:

Practic activities with the special needs student helping him achieve the abilities and competencies required by the curriculum;

Effective accompagnement of the student in the classrom to facilitate the educational process;

Activities with other students in the classroom to facilitate the acceptance and non-discriminatory attitudes from other students;

Activities with the teachers to promote curricula adaptation for the specific needs of disabled students;

Activities with parents of disabled children to teach them how to respond to the specific educatinal needs of their children;

Extra curricular activities to promote social inclusion of disabled students.

All these activities are supposed to be included in the norm of 16 hours a week and usually

they could serve about 8-12 students simultaneously.

These organizational developments are relatively new for the educational system in

Romania and things are not settled yet, there are different procedures and initiatives in different

counties. But it is obvious that the number of support teachers are limited due to the budgetary

cuts but also because of the absence of qualified an experienced staff. And there is a

disproportion between the number of special needs students and these support teachers (in a big

city of about 400.000 inhabitants there are about 22 support teachers, the county has about 30

support teachers). And also there is an ambiguity about who should these teachers work with (we

found support teachers working with learning difficulties students in mainstream education but

also support teachers working with severe mental disabilities students who couldn’t attend classes

even in a special school).

They are working mainly with the primary education (classen from 1 to 4) helping the

teacher especially for adapting the curricula for Mathematics and Romanian Language. For the

secondary education (classes from 5 to 8) they have only a general methodological role helping

all the teachers (who would accept this practice and ask for help) to adapt their curricula to special

needs students and to promote special teaching methods.

But the practices differ from county to county. We found even a new category of schools

“integrative schools” there are not special nor mainstream schools. There are those schools which

are supposed to make the integration of the disability students and therefor are provided with

“support structures” – meaning a group of professionals (psycho-pedagogues, psychologists,

counsellors, speech-therapists, support and itinerary teachers, social workers, etc.).

All these practices seem good and well intended but our educational system remains a

competitive one. A support teacher from a big city asked if a disabled student graduating special

secondary education could come back to a mainstream high school told us:

“For those with mental deficience is not possible, they have special curricula for disabled.

Physics for example they are doing the 5th grade level until the 8th grade. For low visuals

of locomotion problems it is possible, they go to ordinary high schools. Before the national

evaluation at the end of school year sometime in March there is a special session of

scholar orientation for special education graduates toward vocational schools where they

could get qualified for a future job. Unfortunately I had a graduated class from a special

51

school and I followed the carreer of my 23 graduates. Only four of them succeeded to

finish vocational school and learn a profession…”

5.3. Competitiveness perspective: schools like enterprises are competition

oriented and disabled students cannot play their role

As we observed earlier an important barrier of the access of the disabled students in the

mainstream education is represented by the competitiveness perspective in the admission

process, the most important criteria being the average of the grades from the former 4 years and

the results in the national evaluations. In fact the whole functioning of our education system is

based on competition and this is not a new. Even in the communist regime, the best schools were

for the best students and rewards for those having the best results started since kindergarten. All

the admission processes after the mandatory education of 8 grades, in high schools and

universities, were big contests with winners and losers and parents spent a lot of efforts and

money to help their children to win these exams. Teachers were also evaluated on the base of

competition and evaluated on the base of the results of their students in the national Olympic

contests. In fact competitiveness in schools is part of the education system role, to prepare for

the future competition in economy and society as a whole.

Bat there is a difference between the former communist and the actual regime in Romania.

The former society was very much centralized and directed by the communist authorities while

nowadays the state retired from his former functions, the society being much more market

oriented and following a “neo-liberal” ideology even in the redistribution of benefits as shows some

east European sociologists7.

In fact in the former regime the segregated special schools functioned for creating

vocational abilities for the future workers in the segregated protected units or the segregated

hospital homes where the disabled had an entirely segregated life. But the system worked, was

coherent even if the equality was not an issue because of the educational and medical model of

“defectology”. Nowadays education is still segregated in spite of the shy initiatives of inclusive

school, but the rest of the system dissoluted. The protected units almost disappeared and the

market economy is excluding disabled people from a competitive labor market in the conditions

of the collapse of the ancient communist economy and the actual financial crisis.

Coming back to educational system one can ask what are its targets and objectives

regarding the disability students. What type of education they get and for what purpose? An

inclusive school would be fit for an inclusive society but when the labor market and society as a

whole is excluding this category the segregated education seem the proper approach and

illustrate the reproductive efforts of the society through the education in the Bourdieu perspective.

But let’s go back to our informants. Speaking about disability students’ chances in the

educational system a high school teacher told us:

“It depends much of the disability. If we speak about a student with motor disability he is

almost equal with a student without disabilities but if we speak about a student with laminar

intellect it’s clear that he cannot reach the same level. He has an adapted curricula, has a

lot of adapted activities and so on, but it is clear that he cannot reach the required level

for a prestigious school where admission is based on results. Speaking about sensorial

disability we have in the county deaf students. They are very well integrated in the art high

7 Mladenov, T. (2015). Neoliberalism, Post socialism, Disability, Disability& Society, 30:3, 445-459, DOI:

10.1080/09687599.2015.1021758.

52

school and there are many of them about 7 or 8, maybe 10 in that school. Those with

mental disability are following Step by Step, or other educational alternatives, they are not

left aside, there is a concern and a strategy… But unfortunately, and now I speak from the

perspective of the scholar inspector for special education that I was for 8 years, the policies

were limited to some financed projects and that was all!”

So it’s very clear that the educational system is based on competitiveness and this fact

it’s a barrier, especially for the intellectual disability, in the access or in the evolution of the

disabled students in the mainstream schools.

We have also the academic perspective about education competitiveness which make

almost impossible the inclusion of disabled students in mainstream schools. A university

associate professor, working in a special psycho-pedagogy department told us:

“Since 1995, if I am not mistaken, it began the inclusion experiment and Timisoara was

one of the four centers where this process started and was successful. There were pilot

schools were integration was implemented and, at the end of 90th and beginning of 2000,

many schools wanted to be more and more inclusive because they were considered elite

schools. Nowadays there is the reverse: schools try to become less and less inclusive

because they want to be schools of excellence where students with disabilities don’t find

their places…”

A more radical position has a former official in the former National Agency for People with

Handicap, a person with disabilities:

”The problem is linked with the fact that Romania is not that open country as officials are

declaring it is at TV channels and in international conferences. In reality it is a country very

little open to vulnerable groups and this is to be observed in the educational system which

is mainly for smart, white guys that will become Olympics. The others don’t count. There

is a complete meritocracy for some few Olympics that anyhow leave the country because

we don’t have any university in the first 100 and I don’t think we shall have one soon. And

then “middle-class” in the educational system do not exist. There are many cases when

the parents went to educators, headmasters and teachers and make pressures to get off

the classes those children that keep the class level low and teachers cannot focus

exclusively toward children who wants to become elites…”

This is an exacerbated position, no doubt, and it is specific to the activist fight for rights for

people with disabilities, but one cannot deny that there is an important reality hidden under this

bitter statement.

5.4. Education for citizenship?

It is clear that many teachers especially in secondary education do not feel comfortable to

work with disabled students. They pretend that they don’t have expertise, or that they are not

prepared to work with this category and it would be more profitable even for these students if they

would be educated by a specially trained personnel in a specialized environment. Some others

claim the low payments in education and the efforts they have to make to teach so many students

and to make them respond to the requirements. It is why they don’t have time and possibility to

adapt the curricula or the teaching methods to the special education needs of some students. So

they decline the inclusion school concept in favor of “excellence” school concept. It is not always

53

the case for kindergartens or primary school teachers who are more open to working with special

students in mainstream environment.

This is probably because of their training (that used to be done in pedagogy high schools

and now in universities in pedagogy departments) which is more oriented toward psychology or

special pedagogy and which discuss more about deficiencies. The other teachers working in

secondary education, have less contact with psychology and pedagogy being specialized in “earth

sciences” or even “humanistic sciences” but not “social sciences” and this could be an explanation

of their reticence’s. As one of our teacher subjects told us:

“Why have I to take care of these children? I have a curricula to respect and I have to

teach it. I have a scholar inspector who comes and check if I am doing it right. So don’t

ask me to adapt the curricula because I don’t know how…”

And not only teachers are reticent to the inclusion process but also headmasters, the

school managers. Their motivation is a little different and is linked with the new functionning of

the schools in Romania in the demographic and financial crisis conditions. The danger of loosing

students and dissapearance determines a new scholar policy and a new marketing activity, more

agressive, trying to create an image of high staus, very effective and very good results school.

The presence of disabled students in this «prestigious school» is considered a burden that

would demotivate the parents of «normal children» to enlist there. So that the school management

is looking for ways of avoiding the admission of disability students in their institution. It is also true

that the process is nowadays more nuanced. It is not legal to discriminate in Romania, so that it

is more advisable to admit the school incompetence to educate this type of students and to predict

future troubles in their graduation and to reccomend the parents to look for special schools as

being more satisfactory for their educational needs. One of our informants who is director of a

County Center of Educational Resources and Assistance told us:

“It happens that some of the school directors to tell “we cannot receive you”. It is a

discrimination that could be punished by the National Council against Discrimination. So I

explained them that there is a difference between saying “we don’t know how to do this,

we don’t have the right resources, maybe it would be better for you to try in another school

because we don’t do this right” and “in any case you cannot come here with this child.”

In fact teachers are the main opponents for special needs children’s inclusion in

mainstream schools. It’s true that they are not very well paid and therefore not very open to many

efforts and changes of their traditional way of teaching in the sense of adapting the curricula to

the specific needs of their students.

But there are also other ideas that teachers have, being a prejudice against disabled

students’ inclusion, ideas referring to the equality of treatment for all children like a basis for the

equality of rights of the citizens in a democratic society. The same informant gave us an example

of such a teacher that “observe the justice” in grading his students:

“For example we have a child that benefits of curricular adaptation and itinerant support

teacher, but the classroom teacher do not accept to grade him with more than 5 (out of

10) even if the adapted evaluation result should be graded with 9.5 (out of 10). He doesn’t

understand that the child’s grade should evaluate his progress and should not be

compared with the results of the other children in the class.”

We also had other testimonies from our informants in the previous phase of our research

telling that some university teachers refuse to offer the electronic support of their courses to a

54

blind student motivating that nobody receive it and this means a real equality of treatment and

democratic attitude.

There are also instances where teachers blame the parents for not staying long enough

with their disabled children, for not knowing how to respond to their needs and not cooperating

with the teachers well enough, or even for having unrealistic expectances for their special needs

children. Look what a well intended and experienced informer told us about the parents:

“I think that the big problem is not ours (the teachers) or of the children, but belongs to the

most part to the parents. We have some ideas about disabled people from classes,

conferences or workshops…, but parents are very few to know the problems that their

disabled children are confronted with in a mainstream school. That’s why they come to 7

years. They need 7 years of home education, and the parents are modelling the child’s

education, teach him certain things and requirements. Those with special needs are not

prepared to enter the “normal” education.”

In fact here lies a very tricky perspective about equality and democratic education. The

real equality of chances in the case of people with disabilities means inequality of treatment

because the possibilities of the beneficiaries are very unequal with the others, people without

disabilities.

Let’s come back to the origin of the term handicap: “a race or other contest in which certain

advantages or disadvantages of weight, distance, time, etc., are placed upon competitors to

equalize their chances of winning.”8So handicap means in fact etymologically positive

discrimination! But what about inclusion, is our school oriented to inclusion of special needs

students in mainstream schools? Obviously not! And this is not a specific problem problem of the

Romanian education system. As Michel Oliver describes in a very well written book,9in United

Kingdom, one of the decisive issues in the education of disabled children in the years 70’ from

90’ was the integration in the mainstream schools. The report written by Lady Warnock, published

in 1978, and the Education Act from 1981 both supported the principle of integration but didn’t

add much to the rights as citizens for disabled children. The Education Reform Act from 1988 was

to be the vehicle of bringing the discipline of the market into the process of schooling and the

practice of teaching. The Government introduced the “national curriculum” in order that schools

and teachers can do what they like as long as, at the end of the day, the national curriculum is

delivered.

The Act and the regulations derived from it allowed for the modification and disapplication

of the national curriculum for disabled children in certain situations and under certain conditions

at the discretion of the head teacher. The changes required from the schools in order to

accommodate children with special needs relate to the establishment of special needs

department, the provision of support services both internal and external to the school. As teachers

are concerned, they need to aquire extra knowledge and different skills in order to facilitate the

process of integration.

So this was about 20 years ago, the situation of the integration of special needs students

in the mainstream educational system in United Kingdom. It looks similar with the Romanian

integrative policy into the educational system. It could represent a model for our legislators and

8 http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/handicap 9 Oliver, Michael – Understanding Disability – From Theory to Practice, 1996, St. Martin’s Press, New York.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/handicap

55

the educational authorities could promote this strategy (as they sometime even do), asking for

resources to develop a non-segragated education system.

The problem is that this integrative medal is not very much accepted by the disabled

people themselves. This “old view” of integration is dominated by the notion of “normality” and

requires the acceptance and tolerance of children with special needs. People, teachers and

children are encouraged and educated to acceptance and tolerance of those who differs from this

“normality”. It’s about personal tragedy theory and deficit theory in educational terms.

Tragedies and deficits are unfortunate and these poor individuals should not be made to

suffer further through rejection and stigmatization: they should be accepted and tolerated. This

discourse sound very familiar in Romania and usually belongs to the educated and modern-

oriented professionals and politicians. Unfortunately this is not it and it looks that we are only at

half-way (or approaching it). Because why to include disabled people into education if society is

excluding them, and the most exclusive factor is the labor market. As one of our informants

observed:

“I don’t believe we are prepared as society. Maybe as educational system we make an

effort and integrate them but as society I don’t know if we are prepared. If we look at the

society, I don’t know if an adult is prepared to collaborate or to work with a disabled person.

It can be observed a certain marginalization, even if not direct, it’s not said openly, but

there are reticent people when they have to relate to people with disabilities. For children

is even more difficult being rejected by other kids and adults, because they are more

sensitive“.

One of the function of education is to assure the integration of individuals into society. The

purpose of the schools is to educate all children, and not only those who met the increasingly

narrow band of selection criteria. The special schools even full of educational resources, have

failed to empower the disabled children to look for their right place into society. This failure to

empower is not tolerated any more by disabled people themselves, struggling to confront the

processes that excludes and segregate them: “Increasingly we disabled people are raising our

voices to speak against warehousing of disabled people in special institutions and against the

denial of basic equal and civil rights. We no longer accept segregation and paternalization of did

led people by medical experts, policy makers and administrative officials. (European Network of

Independent Living – 1989)”10.

In this perspective the new function of education in the case of special needs students

should change from integration to inclusion. “What is needed is a moral commitment to the

integration of all children into a single education system as part of a wider commitment to the

integration of disabled people into society” says Michael Oliver. “The history of the twentieth

century for disabled people has been one of exclusion. The twenty-one century will be struggle

for inclusion. In this struggle special, segregated education has no role to play11.”

So, our educational system, its organization and administrators have still long way to go

to find the inclusive perspective, very present in the contemporary developed countries. Even if

some measures appeared and some steps have been made, inclusion remains an important, but

still faraway requirement of our school and society.

10 Oliver, Michael (1996). Understanding Disability: From Theory to Practice. New-York: St. Martin’s Press,

New York, pp.98. 11 Ibidem, pp. 93-94.

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5.4.1. Good practices examples

This chapter as is until now has showed mainly a critical approach about the Romanian

educational system and could live the impression that nothing works in the framework of special

needs students. It’s true that the inclusive perspective is still far, but important initiatives in the

right education for disabled children are present in the Romanian educational landscape. Apart

of the good will of the teachers and other professionals, that we already mentioned and could be

seen through the informants’ statements, there are also some projects that could be mentioned

as leaders in developing teaching knowledge for special needs students. We encountered many

of these, but we will mention only two of them, the most representatives, one from private and the

other from state educational system.

Sunshine Educational Center School is sponsored by the Christian Foundation RCE

Children's Hope, a foundation that works as a non-profit organization. The school was opened in

January 2002, the aim being to meet the educational needs of children diagnosed with mental

and physical disabilities in Arad and surroundings, both from families and from orphanages. The

age of children enrolled in school is between 3 and 13 years old. Currently, there are seven

classes, each with 6-7 children grouped by mental and chronological age. Training classes under

the guidance of a teacher is helped by an assistant in educational activities. All team members

who work with children have been trained in special education profesional centers in United

States, and through various training courses in the country. Every child benefits from an

educational plan designed to întaâmpine its specific needs, including activities such as: reading,

mathematics, writing, fine and gross motor skills, language, socialization. Besides classroom

activities, children benefit from physiotherapy, speech therapy or advise in school activities carried

out by specialized personnel. The school program follows the same calendar as public schools

and, the daily schedule is from 8:00 to 16:00 Monday to Friday. Children, too, is transported,

minibuses school, being taken from different points of the morning meeting points which remain

unchanged for their return.During the school year are prepared feasts at various events:

Christmas, March 8, Easter, end of school in which children evolve with various specific programs.

At the end of each school year one week camp is organized with the participation of

parents as an opportunity to better social inclusion. "Sunshine School" is the following statement

of principles and the school environment will highlight and apply theprinciples:

All children can learn.

All children have value and are treated with dignity and respect.

All decisions are made in the best interests of children, they are always first.

The curriculum will meet the needs of spiritual, emotional, social, academic and physical

needs of each child.

Each child will learn and practice a functional means of communication.

School and family will work together so that each child to reach their full potential with the

aim of integration into society.

Resources and Educational Assistance Center "SPERANTA" in Timisoara is an

educational alternative, a psycho-pedagogical support service-medico-social, which operates

under the guidance and coordination of the County School Inspectorate and in Timis County

Council funding. Accumulating experience of 20 years in service incentive-compensation-

57

rehabilitation for children with disabilities, annually offers these services for about 300 children,

aged 3 months to 18 years with disabilities (mental, physical, speech, conduct, socio-emotional,

ADHD, pervasive developmental disorders, learning disabilities, etc.) for families / supporters and

their respective teachers.

To facilitate access to services and minimize barriers have taken several measures to

adapt the entire evaluative process-incentive-compensatory recuperative-needs children in the

records:

Adapt the environment to the needs of children with disabilities:

Access ramps entry into space

stair lift for access to the interior space

guidance information panels in contrasting color space and legible size

Create lighting conditions tailored to children

Create color contrast (furniture, doors) to facilitate orientation of children with visual

impairment

Adapt materials:

The development of augmentative and alternative communication means: Braille, tactile

books, books with symbols, communication boards, communication devices with voice

recording programs on your computer with voice synthesizer, icons, specific electronic

technologies, etc.

Adapting curriculum:

Curriculum based on thematic units based on the idea of education centering on the child

and its global development. Thus, organizing activities around a theme involves facilitating

the learning child development / cognitive skills, communication, fine motor skills and

social skills covered that topic,

Combination with the functional curriculum development. By functional activities children

develop their cognitive skills, fine motor skills of communication, orientation and mobility,

socialization, personal autonomy.

Methods and techniques:

child activities guide technique "hand on" or "hand in hand"

completion activities on small steps

Marking sequences of activities: beginning - middle - end to facilitate orientation in time of

children.

Shares of staff awareness /public

Education and inclusive school emphasize the need for continuous adaptation of the

education system and the organization of school/kindergarten usual to meet a wide variety of

children, which provides the framework for all children learn together regardless of the difficulties

or differences that they may He has.

The access of children with disabilities in mainstream schools and kindergartens

accessibility requires not only space but also changing attitudes, behaviors curriculum.

In other news, an inclusive education is effective and successful when they combine medical and

psychosocial intervention in the cabinet specialized child with the family and especially at

school/kindergarten.

In view of the foregoing, in the 20 years of activity, CREA Speranta offered a model of

inclusive education that promote three-way approach to child-family-teacher. Thus to ensure

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access for children with special educational needs in inclusive education and special services

have produced permanent changes in the institution that services offered by CREA Speranta to

best respond to the needs of the 300 children out annually. In parallel we have undertaken

activities that have

contributed to:

Improving the educational climate in schools and kindergartens table to achieve

effective inclusive education;

Optimization of the family environment.

5.5. Short chapter conclusions:

There are important barriers in admission of the disabled students in mainstream

schools (at all levels but increasing as the education level increases). The most

important enemies of the inclusion of disabled students into general educations are

the teachers that reclaim lack of resources and special training and also a big number

of students in the class, that decrease the possibility of individualized activities with

students.

Another factor incriminated is competitiveness perspective: schools like enterprises

are competition oriented and disabled students cannot play their role. Competition and

averages are the bases of admission in secondary schools, high schools and

universities and the special schools are not entering the competition.

The perspective of human rights (disabled children have rights to education) is

replaced by the perspective of special rights (disabled children have rights to special

and segregated education made by experts - specialists). The society as a whole is

discriminating the disabled citizens and mainly the labor market, so that inclusive

school would not fit very well in a segregated society.

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6. References:

Babbie, E. (2013). The Practice of Social Research. Wadsworth: Cengage Learning.

Campbell, M., Gregor, F. (2008). Mapping Social Relations: A Primer in Doing Institutional Ethnography. Toronto, Canada: Higher Education University of Toronto Press.

De Vault, M.L., McCoy, L. (2006). Institutional Ethnography Using Interviews to Investigate Ruling Relations, in D.E. Smith (Eds.) Institutional Ethnography as Practice, Rowan & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. Oxford, UK, pp. 15-34.

Denzin, N.K., Lincon, Y.S. (2011). Introduction: The Discipline and Practice of Qualitative Research (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, C.A: Sage.

Diamond, T. (2006). “Where did you get the fur coat, Fern?” Participant Observation in institutional Ethnography (pp. 45–63) in Smith, D.E. (ed.), Institution al Ethnography as Practice Toronto: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

Frankel, R.M., Beckman, H.W. (1983).The Effect of Physician Behavior on the Collection of DaTA. Grant support: in part by grant PE 15226-04 from the U. S. Public Health Service, and the Ruth Mott Fund, Flint, Michigan. Presented April 1983 at the Fourth Annual SREPCIM Task Force on Interviewing, Washington, D.C.

Morse, J.M. (1995). The Significance of Saturation. Qualitative Health Research, 5, 147 – 149.

Reiss, A.J. (1979). Guvernmental Regulation of Scientific Inquiry: Some Paradoxical Consequences. In C.B. Klockars & F.W.O'Connor (Eds.), Deviance and Decency: The ethics of Research with Human Subjects (pp.61-95). Beverly Hills, CA:Sage.

Smith, D.E. (1987). The Everyday World as Problematic: A Feminist Sociology. Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press.

Smith, D.E. (1990).The Conceptual Practices of Power: A Feminist Sociology of Knowledge Boston: Northeastern University Press.

Smith, D.E. (2005a). Texts, Facts, and Feminity. Exploring the Relations of Ruling, New York: Routledge.

Smith, D.E. (1999). Writing the Social: Critique, Theory and Investigations. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Smith, D.E. (2005). Institutional Ethnography. A Sociology for People, Altamira Press, Lanham, MD.

Soble, A. (1978). Deception in Social Science Research: Is Informed Consent Possible? Hasting Center Report, pp. 40-46.

Turner, S.M. (2006). ‘Mapping Institutions as Work and Texts’ in Smith, D.E. (ed) Institutional Ethnography as Practice, Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield pp. 139 – 161.

Pachman, J. ( 2009). Evidence Base for Pre-employment Medical Screening, Bulletin of the World Health Organization 2009; 87:529-534, doi: 10.2471/BLT.08.052605, consulted on-line http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/87/7/08-052605/en/.

Shepherd J., 1992, Pre-employment Examinations: How Useful? J Am Board Fam Pract; 5: 617-21 pmid: 1462795.

de Kort, W.L., van Dijk, F.J. (1997). Preventive Effectiveness of pre-employment Medical Assessments. Occup Environ Med, 54: 1-6 doi: 10.1136/oem.54.1.1 pmid: 9072026.

Bourdieu, P., Passeron, J.P. (1990). Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture, Sage Publications Inc.

Mladenov, T. (2015). Neoliberalism, Postsocialism, Disability, Disability& Society, 30:3, 445-459, DOI: 10.1080/09687599.2015.1021758.

Oliver, Michael (1996). Understanding Disability: From Theory to Practice. New-York: St. Martin’s Press.

http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/87/7/08-052605/en/

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/oem.54.1.1

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=9072026&dopt=Abstract

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7. Appendix Structure of the interviews for representatives of employment services for vulnerable people

I. Introduction: details about the person interviewed-function, responsibilities within the institution, the type of contact with the direct beneficiaries.

Mission/core tasks in working with vulnerable groups.

Target groups served.

Eligibility criteria/beneficiaries access.

The legislation under which the institution acts.

Collaborations with other institutions/organizations providing these services.

What type of services aimed directly employability of beneficiaries?

What caseloads have service personnel?

II. Information about experience with disabled individuals

Detailed description of services for disabled individuals looking for a job (Counselling, training and mediation, job fairs)

Free services /Paid services for people disabled individuals.

Adapting the services offer for the disabled individuals.

Awareness and information campaigns regard the labor market integration for recruitment companies and employers?

What are your views on services provided to support the employability of disabled individuals?

What are the services provided to disabled individuals that you consider successful examples? From your perspective which are the effective employment services for disabled individuals? What are the problems? What helps?

How do you think disabled individuals are seen by the employers? Can this cause problems? Can this cause good things?

Proposals for action/suggestions for better employment among disabled individuals.

Unemployed protection/ unemployment benefits.

What documents are required for registration of a person looking for a job? What is the registration procedure? What is the procedure for granting unemployment benefits?

Factors that hamper the employment of vulnerable groups. What are in your opinion the main obstacles faced by disabled individuals in getting/keeping a job? In your experience how does having a disability impact on getting and keeping employment? What are the problems? What helps? (Legislation, cultural characteristics, community resources…)

Problems facing the labor market in Romania? What can be done for improving? What are the problems? What helps?

Role/efficiency of the institutions/organizations that offer employment services for disabled individuals?

The view on the accessibility for beneficiaries of services offered by the institution. Is it easily available? Where do you think the vulnerable groups look for this kind of information? What are the problems? What helps?

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Fiscal subsidies and facilities granted to employers for boosting disabled individuals. The effects of these measures on the employability of disabled individuals? What are the problems? What helps?

Impact on the level of employability among disabled individuals of the quota system? What are the problems? Suggestions for improvement? What helps?

What changes do you think should be made in terms of legislative or tax measures that would have a positive effect on employment among disabled individuals?

Existing databases regard the impact of quota system among disabled individuals employability.

Coverage among vulnerable advisory services/maintenance/training/retraining, online portal on job vacancies.

Do you think there is enough information available among disabled individuals about counseling services /mediation/ training /online portal on job vacancies?

Existing databases allow the identification of unemployed people by disability status? Databases are disaggregated based on disability status?

There are updated database on disabled beneficiaries receiving employment services (monthly/quarterly/annual)?

Specific problems/suggestions to improve the existing employment services/ legislation/new services in order to increase labor integration of disabled individuals?

Impact of Romania's EU accession on employment services for disabled individuals?

Examples of good practice/successfully projects. How do you assess the impact of these projects? What were the results and how do you evaluate the effectiveness of these projects in terms of the impact it had on the beneficiaries?

Network of collaborators

In your contact with disabled individuals have they expressed any particular views that are relevant to this consultation?

Is there anything you would like to tell us that you think is relevant to this topic that is not covered by the questions above?

Structure of the interviews for Employers

I. Introduction: details about the person interviewed: function, tasks within the company/institution/organization, type of contact with the beneficiaries, work experience, the type of economic activity, number of employees, number of disabled from the total employees.

Collaborations with other institutions/organizations in terms of recruitment.

The process of recruitment.

Participant at the job selection interview.

How many and what kind of jobs were offered to disabled individuals from the beginning till now?

Information about experience with disabled individuals

In your experience what are/were the difficulties you have encountered in the recruitment of disabled individuals? But in terms of their ability to adapt to workplace/keeping employment? Their integration in the team of colleagues? What are the problems? What helps?

What are your views on labor productivity/performance at work among disabled people?

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In order to employ disabled people from vulnerable groups you work with recruiters/public institutions, NGO's? Which is the process?

Impact of disability status in getting and keeping employment? What are the problems? What obstacles do you see?

What type of disability do you think wouldn't be suitable for your company?

In your experience did you encounter specific problems in the process of hiring disabled individuals?

What are your views regard the main causes for employers avoid hiring disabled individuals?

You were put in a position to accommodate the work place in order to meet the special needs of a disabled employee /if necessary you will be willing to adapt the workplace in order hire a disabled person?

Possible obstacles: demands regarding labor protection rules? Occupational medicine? Health problems of employees with disabilities? Medical leave? Layoffs? Resignations?? Other problems?

What do you think are the factors that determine a higher vulnerability of disabled individuals in getting employed? Can you provide some examples from your experience?

How do you think disabled individuals are seen by the employers/other people? Can this cause problems? Can this cause good things?

What are your views on compulsory quota system for employers? Do you think this system is effective/expected results? It increased the employability of disabled individuals? What are the issues from the perspective of employers? What are the problems?

Would it be a simple or complicated procedure for employers to access the available tax incentives offered by the state? In your experience have you encountered difficulties? What are the problems? Suggestions for improvement?

What are the main causes for the current system of subsidies and tax incentives offered by the state to employers for boosting labor market integration of disabled individuals does not have the desired impact?

Do you think there is enough information available among employers about the tax incentives they can receive from the state?

Do you think that employers prefer to pay penalties to the state/to purchase goods or services from protected units in the amount of penalties/to employ disabled individuals?

What obstacles did you encounter when you wanted to employ disabled individuals?

To what extent the current subsidies and tax incentives provided by the state to employers contribute to increase employment among disabled individuals? What are the problems? What legislative measures/tax changes you propose?

What changes do you think should be made in terms of tax/legislation that would have the effect of encouraging/stimulate employers to employ disabled individuals?

With reference to disabled individuals what measures could be implemented in order to increase their employability?

From your experience what effects have the tax exemption on income from salary on collegial relationships among disabled individuals?

Your organization has been or is involved in social economy projects?

How could the state stimulate the development of the social economy sector? What obstacles do you anticipate?

With what types of problems do you think currently face the Romanian labor market? What solutions do you propose?

What is your opinion about the role of institutions/organizations offering employment services?

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In your contact with disabled individuals have they expressed any particular views that are relevant to this consultation?

Is there anything you would like to tell us that you think is relevant to this topic that is not covered by the questions above?

Structure of the interviews with Education Staff

I. Data about the interviewee and the institution

Data regarding the interviewee – position, experience, job description, professional experience.

Trainings and workshops he attended about inclusion of disabled individuals?

Past or present institutional projects or other activities in favor of educational inclusion of disabled individuals.

Specific policies and strategies of the institution regarding disabled individuals. Information about the experience with disabled individuals

Detailed description of the institutional access of students with different types of disability (sensorial, physical, intellectual). Eventually if there are no cases: How would you act if such a person would ask for access in your institution?

Management of discrimination situations (from colleagues, teachers, parents, etc.)

Specific procedures and methods of curriculum adaptation to the specific educational needs of disabled students.

Trainings and workshops of the staff in institution about activity with disabled students.

General education versus special education: advantages and "problematics" possibilities and limits, the transfer between the two systems (examples if any explored in details)

School abandonment of disabled students: possibilities and opinions about the consequences of the future social inclusion/exclusion.

Possibilities for a better functioning for the educational system, opinions and suggestions from the interviewee.

Structure of the interviews with Medical Staff Introduction

Age, work experience, experience in the field.

I. Manager/Members of the Complex Evaluation Committee for the adult disabled person:

How does the committee work? What are the main attributions? How does the committee form? What are the main procedures that guide the activity of the committee? What are the documents that have to be filed to the committee? How is the handicap degree established for a person?

The re-evaluation of the handicap degree: what is the role of the re-evaluation? What is the frequency of the re-evaluation and the specific procedure?

Strong points and weak points of the handicap degree evaluation process?

Legislative changes in the last years? Proposals, ideas for future legislative changes? What are the main tendencies of the public policies in the field?

Proposals of the subjects regarding the complex evaluation of the adult disabled persons.

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What are the main rights and obligations of the disabled person after the establishing the handicap degree?

What are the work rights of the disabled persons depending on the handicap degree? Are there individualized recommendations for adapted work fields that the individual can access/or should avoid in relation with the given handicap degree?

If a disabled person is employed, there are some social benefits that can be lost due to employment?

There is a way/a system for monitoring the employment status of the disabled persons? Is there a database that correlates the work rights of a disabled person and their effective employment status? If yes, what happens if there is no appropriate correlation between the two?

Are there advantages for an employer if employs a disabled person?

From the personal experience working in the Committee, relate an actual story/case that represented an atypical/difficult situation.

II. Structure of the interview with doctor for expertise for the invalidity pension-

National House of Public Pensions:

How does the committee for work capacity expertise work? What are the main attributions? How does the committee form? What are the main procedures that guide the activity of the committee? What are the documents that have to be filed to the committee? How is the invalidity degree established for a person?

The re-evaluation of the invalidity degree: what is the role of the re-evaluation? What is the frequency of the re-evaluation and the specific procedure?

Strong points and weak points of the invalidity degree evaluation process?

Legislative changes in the last years? Proposals, ideas for future legislative changes? What are the main tendencies of the public policies in the field?

Proposals of the subjects regarding the invalidity evaluation process.

What are the main rights and obligations of the persons that have invalidity pensions?

What are the work rights of a person depending on the invalidity degree? Are there individualized recommendations for adapted work fields that the individual can access/or should avoid in relation with the given invalidity degree?

If a person with an invalidity degree is employed, there are some social benefits that can be lost due to employment?

There is a way/a system for monitoring the employment status of the persons with invalidity degree? Is there a database that correlates the work rights of a person with an invalidity degree and their effective employment status? If yes, what happens if there is no appropriate correlation between the two?

From the personal experience working in the Committee of expertise, relate an actual story/case that represented an atypical/difficult situation.

III. Structure of the interviews with Family Doctor/Occupational Physician:

Information about the experience with disabled individuals:

Are there special rights that disabled persons have in relation with the services offered by the family doctor/occupational physician?

What are the main problems/difficulties experienced by the subject in their activity with the disabled persons?

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What are the main attributions, responsibilities of the occupational physician in relation with a disabled employee? How does it work? Is there an individualized plan? How is this plan constructed?

When is the case that a person I evaluated unfit for a job? How is this done? Examples.

How are the specific set of measures established for a disabled person at work monitored? What are the obligations of an employer towards a disabled employee?

What are the main legislative measures regarding the work integration of the disabled persons? Strong points and weak points of the specific legislation? Are there new legislative proposals on the problematic?

Proposals for new legislative measures/social politic from the subject.

From the personal experience working with a disabled person, relate an actual story/case that represented an atypical/difficult situation.

Structure of the interviews with Associations’ Representatives

I. Data about the interviewee and the Institution

Information about the interviewee – position, job description, experience.

The ration with the vulnerable group represented by the association (personal, family, voluntary, etc. exploring details if possible).

Data about the association: how old, sources of financing, activities and projects of success (detailed examples).

II. Data about the situation of the association’s beneficiaries

Personal opinions about the national policy and strategy about disabled individuals. For instance: Do you believe that there are differences between the national strategy and the real situation of these people? What influence do you think that had the Romanian integration in EU about the situation of disabled individuals (if any example to be explored in details).

The history of the policies and strategies about social inclusion of disabled individuals with accent on the moments of change (documents, legislation, political activities).

Regard on the actual legislation identifying good and bad points.

Social integration in connection with labor integration. Are there difficulties? What are the causes? What possible solutions?

Specific activities of the association about stimulating the labor inclusion of the beneficiaries (education, trainings, information, employment assistance, counselling, etc.). Detailed exploration and description of the association’s projects and initiatives (mainly those sustainable which lasted even after the end of initial financing!)

Barriers encountered during the activities of labor market integration of beneficiaries. How were they resolved?

Suggestions and proposals of the association and of the interviewee about the better labor market integration of the beneficiaries.

Structure of the interviews with policy makers (Representatives of National Council Against Discrimination, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Labor, Family and Social Work, Ministry of Health, National Roma Agency, Country Council,etc).

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I. Introduction

Personal data: name, age, position, and previous related positions/professional experience

Appreciate the importance of the disabled individuals among the vulnerable beneficiaries for the institution.

II. Specific problems of the disabled beneficiaries: living conditions (housing), educational stock, income sources, hygiene/health problems, etc.

Describe disabled beneficiaries’ characteristics/particularities on the labor market from the point of view of the institution you represent (their specific needs, the socio-economic particularities, the picture of their employment specificities).

III. Romanian social policies (attitudes, measures and actions) of institutions for

disabled individuals social integration (health, family, education, employment, antidiscrimination etc, specific for each agency/ministry) – context, results and impact.

List the main social policies and laws introduced by the agency/ministry/county council: past and present.

Describe the legal/international engagements frame and the EU and Romanian socio-economic and political context at the time of introducing each strategy/policy/important social measure.

Describe the social and economic effects of the previous social measures and the way they determined the present strategy/social measures – learned lessons (focus on the EU strategies and Romanian context/adaptation for disabled individuals on their work integration process).

Describe the current social policies/measures and the expected impact on the disabled individuals.

Describe the future plans; actions and measures need to be implemented in the frame of current strategies/policies for disabled individuals.

IV. Inter-institutional relationships

Describe the functional relationships with other (equal) public institutions (ministries, agencies, organizations).

Describe the way the beneficiaries receive information from your institution (for example, about their work rights, social benefits related to work/their sources of income).

List the institutions at the local level, which are responsible to implement the social measures and actions and to inform and support directly the disabled beneficiaries (local authorities, county agencies, NGO's etc).

Appreciate the effectiveness of the local administration actions related with the current strategy aim and objectives for disabled individuals.

Structure of the interviews regarding the access of vulnerable categories to social services (informants – representatives of social services providers – public and private)

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I. Information regarding the informant and the institution/organization represented

Data regarding the informant – position, main responsibilities within the job context, type of interaction with the direct beneficiaries.

Data regarding the type of support (material/financial or specialized services) provided by the institution to the disabled individuals:

Mission of the institution/main responsibilities towards the disabled individuals.

The institution is/is not licensed provider of social services.

Target groups (main beneficiaries).

Eligibility criteria/access of the disabled beneficiaries to the support provided.

Legislation that establishes the functioning of the institution.

Does the institution provide other types of services than those established by law as mandatory (minimum) and how are these services financed.

Collaborations with other institutions/organizations for providing support to disabled individuals and how do these collaborations work (who does what, who monitors, who finances etc.).

What type of support focuses the employability of the disabled individuals?

What qualifications hold the employers who are directly involved in delivering the support.

What is the usual case-load for the employees

II. Information regarding the experience/practice in providing support for the disabled individuals

Detailed description of the process of accessing the support (financial or specialized services) by the disabled individuals.

The process of recruiting/referral/ self-referral of the disabled beneficiaries – how does it work, what forms are used, how long it takes etc.

Ways used to evaluate the need of the disabled beneficiary and to establish the solutions to it – how it works, who does it, what forms are used, how long it takes etc.

Frequency and duration of provision of support.

Ways to evaluate the process of intervention – how is the (in) success evaluated and established as such?

Revising the intervention plan – how, when and by whom is it done.

Situations of referral of the disabled beneficiaries towards other institutions/organizations – if it happens and how?

Case studies regarding the provision of support of disabled individuals towards employment – success and fail (ex. Let’s pick one failed case of intervention…); description of the intervention process; explanations regarding the (in) success.

III. Legislative / Methodological gaps in the process of integration on the labor market for the disabled individuals