SELECTING A POST-SECONDARY PROGRAM IN THE TIME OF COVID-19

FACTORS TO CONSIDER

BY ERNST VANBERGEIJK, PH.D., M.S.W.

Selecting a program for your special needs child is difficult enough in the best of times. With the advent of the COVID-19 global pandemic, the decision-making is further complicated with additional health and safety factors to consider. How does one select a post-secondary program for a special needs young adult in the best of times? How does the existence of COVID-19 alter the decision-making process? What factors do parents and the young adult potentially have to consider before they commit to a post-secondary program?

Searching for a post-secondary program for any young adult is a potentially difficult process. A key concept to adopt is the notion of the process being one of joint discovery. In order for the program to be successful, the young adult needs to feel that they are a part of the decision-making process. A key point of discussion will be, what is the purpose of the postsecondary secondary program? Is it to gain job skills? Independent living skills? Social skills? A certificate in a trade? Or a college degree? Whatever you and your young adult decide is the purpose of the post-secondary program, the ultimate goal should be that the program will result in her joining the world of work and living independently. The end goal should not be simply the receipt of a college degree or certification in a trade. What path he or she will take to be able to live as independently as possible and work in meaningful employment will depend upon your young adult's interests, aptitudes, and nature of his or her disability. There is no single guaranteed pathway to this ultimate goal. For a detailed analysis of the factors to consider when selecting a post-secondary program prior to the pandemic see (VanBergeijk, 2018).

Many people believe that getting a college degree is the only way to achieve the goal of getting a job. This is simply not true. According the U.S. Department of Education, slightly less than 1 out of 3 adults in the U.S. have a 4-year college degree or higher (Ryan & Bauman, 2016). The majority of adults in the U.S. do not have a college degree. They are able to support their families and have meaningful, fulfilling lives. The trades are having difficulty attracting young people to their fields. Many of the trades have paid apprenticeships and help young people avoid the large debt they may incur through college loans. In fact, the average age of a carpenter in the U.S. is 40.6 years old (Data USA, 2020). According to the U.S. Department of Labor, there were 1,643,900 jobs for carpenters and other construction laborers in 2019.The job growth for the next 10 years is 5%, which is faster than average (U.S. Department of Labor, 2020). The average annual salary for carpenters in 2018 was $40,573 (Data USA, 2020). Electricians also are an aging population with an average age of 41.2 years and an average annual salary of $56,808 (Data USA, 2020).

COVID-19 CHANGES THE GAME

The year 2020 will go down in the history books as the year of the COVID-19 pandemic. As of December 11, 2020, the world reported a total of 69,788,140 infections and 1,585,727 deaths. Unfortunately, the United States did not present a unified COVID-19 response. The lack of a coordinated policy is reflected in the data. The United States had the highest number of infections of the G-7 nations with 15,632,336 infections nationally, and a total of 292,382 deaths (Johns Hopkins University Corona Virus Resource Center, 2020). The number of infections and deaths are disproportional to the percentage of the population. With over 330 million Americans, we present a little over 4% of the world's population. Yet, the United States accounts for 22.3% of the infections and 18.4% of the deaths globally. The number of infections is 5.6 times greater than expected, given our percentage of the world's population. Likewise, the number of deaths is 4.6 times greater than expected, given our percentage of the world's population. The country is gripped by a third wave of infections with the number of deaths exceeding 3,000 deaths per day. It has become the leading cause of death in the United States. Current models predict that the United States will surpass 539,000 deaths by April 1, 2021 (Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, 2020).

IMPACT OF COVID ON PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

Pneumonia deaths among people with Intellectual and Developmental Disability (IDD) has been described as the canary in the COVID-19 coal mine. The percentage of deaths of people with no IDD who died of pneumonia in 2017 was 1.8%. For individuals with an Intellectual Disability, the death rate due to pneumonia was 7.8%. It climbed to 9.1% for individuals with cerebral palsy and 10.2% for individuals diagnosed Downs syndrome. The death rates from pneumonia are between 2.2 and 5.8 times greater than the non-disabled population (Stevens & Landes, 2020). Given that the COVID-19 virus attacks the lungs of many individuals who become infected, it stands to reason that we would expect higher death rates among the IDD population as a result. The death rate from COVID-19 in the State of New York for individuals with IDD as of April 2020 was 2.2 times greater than the general population. (Stevens & Landes, 2020). In terms of COVID-19 infection and death rates among individuals with other kinds of disabilities, the disparities are also profound. Individuals diagnosed with depression, ADHD, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia are at a much higher risk of infection and death than individuals with no mental disorder. The disparities are further compounded by gender and race. "Individuals who had both a recent mental disorder diagnosis and COVID-19 infection had a death rate of 8.5% and a hospitalization rate of 27.4% compared with 4.7% and 18.6%, respectively, among individuals with COVID-19 and no mental disorder" (Graminga, 2020).

Public health protocols enacted to protect the population have had unintended consequences for the disabled population. Individuals with disabilities are generally more socially isolated than nondisabled individuals. The need to quarantine and physically distance has only exacerbated their sense of isolation and loneliness.

UNEMPLOYMENT

The impact upon the economy has been catastrophic. Unemployment claims have reached record highs. The number of people filing for unemployment assistance has reached a record high of 23 million in May of this year. The unemployment rate rose higher in three months of COVID-19 than it did in two years of the Great Recession (Pew Research Center, 2020). Any apparent dip in the unemployment figures does not reflect an actual drop in the number of unemployed individuals. Rather, it reflects the number of people who are eligible to be counted as unemployed. 

In order to be counted as unemployed, an individual must engage in a certain number of job-search related activities within the last 30 days. Many unemployed individuals have given up looking for work and are no longer counted among the official unemployment numbers. Prior to the pandemic, 8 out of 10 individuals with a disability had given up looking for work (U.S. Department of Labor, 2017). Consequently, the reported unemployment rates among the disabled are artificially low. The pandemic has resulted in a bimodal distribution of unemployment. Many individuals with disabilities were laid off in the first-round layoffs when the pandemic began.

A second group of individuals with disabilities are employed in essential services working in grocery stores, restaurants, and in day care centers. This group is faced with the anxiety of working with the public and the fear of catching the disease. The result is that a large group of people with disabilities that were laid off are driven into poverty and face food insecurity. "By the end of April, more than one in five households in the United States, and two in five households with mothers with children 12 and under, were food insecure. In almost one in five households of mothers with children age 12 and under, the children were experiencing food insecurity," (Brookings Institute, 2020). No specific research is currently available on COVID-19's impact upon the food security of individuals with disabilities. We can only surmise that its impact will more greatly affect this population.

The country has been changed is multiple ways. We now wear face masks in public and physically distance ourselves from others. Hand sanitizer stations are ubiquitous. Our daily routine has been disrupted. This is the context in which families must explore and search post-secondary programs.

The operations of the program can change drastically as a response to the pandemic. Campuses have generally been open. Now students may find that their access to buildings is restricted. Nonessential buildings may be closed. Buildings in use may have a door monitor checking each person's cell phone application (that he or she uses to report daily symptoms) before entering the building. If the person does not adhere to the reporting and testing protocols, or has a positive test result, they may be barred from entering the building until they are cleared by the app.

There are a number of considerations to weigh prior to selecting a post-secondary program for a student with disabilities in the time of COVID. Paramount in that selection are knowing the purpose or goal of the education; and knowing the adaptations the programs have made in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Families will have to weigh the potential risks of the various models of education (e.g. in-person, on-line, and hyflex or hybrid) versus the benefits of a particular model or program. The student has to be comfortable with how the program is responding to the COVID-19 pandemic and with how the education is being delivered.•

NEXT STEPS : CONSIDERATIONS IN SELECTING A POST-SECONDARY PROGRAM IN THE ERA OF COVID-19

1. CAN MY DAUGHTER OR SON LEARN THE SKILLS REMOTELY? There are some outstanding on-line programs available. Some students prefer an on-line environment to an in-person experience, especially those that have social anxiety or social skills difficulties. Other students have difficulty with executive functioning. Initiating tasks can be a major impediment. Without in-person supports and prompting, some of these students will fall through the cracks by forgetting to log onto a class on Zoom™ or Microsoft Teams™. Ask the on-line program you are considering how they engaged students on-line. Do they call, text, or e-mail a student immediately if they have not shown up for class? Will they help your student set reminders on their phones, tablets, or laptops? There are certain skills that are very difficult to teach or learn remotely. Teaching independent living skills on-line can be challenge during the pandemic. It will be important to get a sense from the program how will they teach the independent living skills and what are the expectations of the family in helping with the process. An on-line program can teach cooking, skills for example, but this will require the family to supervise the shopping and cooking at home. Laundry skills can also be taught remotely, but it will require the participation of the family to ensure the young adult with a disability practice the laundry skills by doing their own laundry. Similarly, cleaning of a dorm room or apartment is easier in situ, but it can still be done at home if the family is willing and able to engage the student with a disability in learning room organizational skills while at home.

2. WHAT HAS THE PROGRAM DONE TO MAXIMIZE SAFETY?

Ask the program administrators about their experience with teaching during the pandemic. What precautions have they taken? Have they had any COVID-19 cases? How did they deal with them? Be wary of any promises of safety. Listen carefully to whether or not they are following the science, and the data as well as CDC guidelines, and state and local mandates. Many college-based transition programs have set forth community compacts that all students, including students with disabilities must abide by, if they wish to attend courses and other activities on campus. This is an agreement all students, faculty, and staff will follow during the pandemic. The most basic tenets are wearing a mask, physical distancing, and frequent hand washing. It may include agreeing to regular COVID-19 testing and the daily reporting of symptoms using a smart phonebased application (e.g. CoVerified™). Some colleges, universities, and other post-secondary transition community-based transition programs have gone even further to create "pods" or "bubbles" of students. Students in these pods or bubbles agree not interact or socialize with anyone from outside of their bubble and testing regime. One of the most difficult parts of the compact to abide by are the guidelines surrounding not gathering in large groups. Developmentally, all college-aged students with or without disabilities are geared toward socializing. They go off to post-secondary education wanting to socialize away from the supervision of their parents. Large gatherings of young people can become super-spreader events. Community compacts frequently define the consequences of violating these guidelines. This can include immediate removal from campus and even dismissal from the college, university, or post-secondary program.

Probably one the hardest guidelines for families to follow is the inability of families to visit their student during the semester, or the ability of the student to come home for breaks. In fact, some colleges and universities have altered their semesters' structure to eliminate vacation periods mid-semester and shorten the students' time on campus. By visiting the student on campus or the student coming home for a weekend or short break, the integrity of the pod or bubble is compromised, potentially exposing all pod members to infection. Parents need to discuss with their student their ability to not socialize in large groups and the family's ability to be physically separated for as long as a 15-week semester.

Other considerations involve spacing, cleaning, and the provision of personal protective equipment (PPE). What percentage of the student body will be allowed on campus? Most institutions will have conducted extensive analyses of the classroom, dormitory, recreational, and lab spaces. They will have calculated the maximum capacity for each classroom space which will have completely different guidelines than workout facilities. Ask what is the maximum capacity in the spaces your student will be studying and living in? The cleaning of buildings, high-contact surface areas and air filtration are other important considerations when thinking about selecting a post-secondary program in the time of COVID. Most institutions have increased their cleaning schedules. Some have invested in air filtration systems, hoping to mitigate the potential spread of the virus in buildings. Others simply encouraged the use of open windows for adequate ventilation or have encouraged teaching classes outdoors, weather permitting. Finally, find out about PPE. Will the program provide the PPE and disinfecting products? Or is it incumbent upon the student to provide the PPE? Ask what happens if the student forgets, loses, or runs out of PPE or cleaning products. Does the program have replacements, or will they take the student shopping to replace these items?

3. WHAT KINDS OF SUPPORTS WILL BE AVAILABLE DURING QUARANTINE AND SHOULD THE STUDENT TEST POSITIVE FOR COVID-19? Perhaps one of the most anxiety-provoking periods will be waiting for the COVID-19 test results for the first time. Depending upon the state and the post-secondary program, students may either need to arrive on campus with a negative COVID-19 test within a prescribed number of days; or must come to campus; move-in; get tested; and await results while in quarantine. The wait times vary from 24-72 hours currently. Students with disabilities may struggle with the isolation and the need to stay in their rooms. Residence life staff should be checking on the students regularly, seeing if they need anything. Keeping the student busy during this time period is critical and is often a joint effort between the faculty teaching classes during the day, and the residence life staff providing social and recreational activities at night and on weekends.

The provision of food during the quarantine period is of utmost concern to both the students and their parents. How will food be handled? Will the students go to the cafeteria and pick up their meals? Or will the meals be delivered to their rooms? How many meals will they be expected to eat in their rooms while they are in quarantine? Who will be expected to order and pay for the food? If the students are expected to order their own food from an outside vendor, will there be support available to teach them to use a food delivery service such as Uber Eats™, Grub Hub™, or Doordash™? How the student finds out about a positive COVID-19 test result will be important to know ahead of time. Will the student find out via an e-mail or a text? Or will health services give the student a telephone call directly? Discuss ahead of time with your student what the positive test may mean and what they should do in the event they receive such news. Knowing ahead of time what kind of support they will receive from the program will help reassure the student.

Find out whether those support services will be tele-health; or moving to a quarantine facility for more direct care and supervision. It will be also important to know what is the expectation of the program that the student will go home to convalesce or stay in place to recuperate once they have tested positive. There may be different answers depending upon distance the student would have to travel in order to get home. Some students will not be able to be picked by car and driven home by their parents. Travel on public transportation will most likely be prohibited.

4. HOW HAS THE PROGRAM MODIFIED ITS CURRICULUM OR ITS OPERATIONS IN RESPONSE TO THE PANDEMIC? The range of modifications can be quite vast. It can range from reconfiguring the living arrangements to changing the delivery of the curriculum. Some colleges have limited the capacity in the residence halls and the occupancy of communal bathrooms. Others have come up with unique solutions for housing, such as using local hotels in lieu of operating a residence hall. By using hotel rooms, the college or program can ensure the student has both a private room and a private bathroom, thereby limiting a student's exposure to others during non-class time. The nature of teaching has been significantly impacted during the pandemic. How the curriculum will be delivered again varies widely. Some programs are completely remote, meaning both the faculty and the students are living and learning remotely. No one is on the campus. Other programs will offer a Hyflex™ approach. The student or the faculty member can choose to be remote. A group of students can be in a classroom sitting in a configuration following CDC distancing guidelines while the faculty member uses Zoom™ or some other platform to teach the class from her or his home. The faculty member and students will be supported by a teaching assistant who is in the classroom if there are any technical issues. Some students under this model can join the class remotely as well.

The program may also vary the delivery of the curriculum by combining portions of the semester that are virtual or on-line with a limited residential experience and in-person learning. Families must consider the benefits of social interactions with peers at an in-person program with the risk of infection versus attending a program virtually and the requisite social isolation by staying at home. The teaching of soft employment skills is especially hard to do on-line. However, programs have had to curtail their offering of community-based internships because of the pandemic. Programs cannot maintain a pod or bubble concept and allow the students to work at an internship exposing them to the general public. However, the college or university may be able to develop work like opportunities on campus that give some exposure to a work environment and maintain the bubble or pod concept. Every person participating in the work-like environment must also participate in the testing protocol and daily reporting of symptoms. Otherwise, the protective notion of the pod will be compromised. Programs can use technology to supplement some of the skills they would otherwise learn in an internship. There are a number of software programs to teach job readiness and job skills. For example, students can explore careers using Virtual Job Shadow™. To learn customer service skills and potentially earn an industry- recognized certificate, students can look to the National Retail Foundation™ which offers a customer service course on-line. SYMmersion™ allows students to develop an avatar and go through a series of progressively more complex series of job interviews. For students who are interested in early childcare as a career, Myvirtualchild.com™ teaches students basic concepts in early childcare education.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Ernst VanBergeijk, Ph.D., M.S.W. is a professor at Lesley University in Cambridge, MA and is the Director of the Threshold Program which is a postsecondary transition program for students with a variety of disabilities. lesley.edu/threshold. He also oversees the Lesley University Threshold Alumni Center which provides life-long support for graduates of the Threshold Program. Beginning Summer 2022 the Threshold Program will be offering a 6 - week summer program focusing upon the acquisition of preemployment, independent living and social skills.

References

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