Services for Handicapped Youth

This is an abridgment of the first two reports on the findings of the RAND Coporation’s cross-agency evaluation of government programs for the more than 9 million mentally or physically handicapped youth aged 0-21 who are impaired enough to need services not required by “normal” youth. The programs are grouped into areas and discussed by the five different types of agencies that administer them: health, welfare, education, vocational rehabilitation, and mental health and retardation. In recent years all such programs expended nearly $5 billion annually for services. The report provides a descriptive overview of the handicapped youth population, the structure and functioning of the system, the current state and federal service programs, the resources devoted to various classes of handicapped youth, and the services delivered. Also identified are major problems of the present service system, both in the services delivered and in the institutional structure of some of the programs. (Published as part of Handicapped Children: Strategies for Improving Services, McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York, 1979.)