Evaluation of the Ticket to Work Program Initial Evaluation Report

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This description gives an overview of how the program is intended to operate. The chapters
that follow describe how each element was implemented. Livermore et al. (2003) provide
information about earlier implementation.
A. BASIC STRUCTURE OF TICKET TO WORK
This section begins with an overview of the roles and responsibilities of the major
program stakeholders. It then describes the key processes and policies of the program,
generally from the perspective of a beneficiary. It concludes with an explanation of the
services that ENs provide and the program’s reimbursement policies.
1. Roles and Responsibilities of Major TTW Stakeholders
Conceptually, TTW is a fairly simple program, as displayed in Figure II.1. It begins with
the disability beneficiaries who may, with varying degrees of assistance, be able to achieve
economic self-sufficiency and thus leave the SSI or DI rolls. The program then revolves
around two relationships. The first relationship involves the Ticket itself, which is essentially
a promise of payment from SSA to an EN for providing services that move disability
beneficiaries back to work and off the SSI/DI rolls. The second relationship, between a
beneficiary and an EN, is governed by a voluntary agreement about services, called an
Individual Work Plan (IWP). 1
Figure II.1: Overview of Key Relationships in TTW
SSA
SSI/DI
rules
Ticket
Beneficiaries
Employment
Networks
Individual
Work Plan
1 The service plan prepared by an SVRA is known as Individual Plan for Employment
(IPE), the name for SVRA agreements with clients before TTW. Since IWPs and IPEs are
essentially the same thing, for the sake of simplicity we hereafter use the term IWP to refer
to either type of plan.
II: Structure and Background of the Ticket to Work Program