The Effect of Race/Ethnicity and Disability Status Concordance between Counselors and Clients on the Vocational Rehabilitation Process and Employment Outcomes: A Scoping Review.

This scoping review investigated existing literature on the impact of race/ethnicity and disability status concordance between counselors and clients on the vocational rehabilitation (VR) process and outcomes (especially competitive integrated employment). The goal was to provide evidence on the efficacy of the positive impact of concordance in VR beyond perceptions. However, the analysis included only eleven publications (five on race/ethnicity and six on disability status concordance). This was an extremely sparse cohort of studies (11 studies reviewed) with mixed findings. For the impact of race/ethnicity concordance on the VR process and outcomes, the findings from the five studies were mixed with a few showing a positive or mixed impact (i.e., both positive and negative) while several other inquiries revealed inconclusive or no impact. For disability status concordance, the findings were more conclusive in that four of the five studies indicated a positive impact on the VR process (i.e., client and counselor perceptions of the benefit of concordance). There was an additional disability concordance publication that was a literature review. Only 1 of the 11 total studies was explicit about employment as an outcome. Overall, there appears to be optimism that race/ethnicity and disability status concordance between counselors and clients is beneficial, but the evidence to date is relatively weak due to the small number of studies available in this scoping review. There is an opportunity to strengthen the evidence base, particularly in the employment domain, by investigating concordance practice interventions at the intervention development stage-of research.