(a) After a customer has been determined eligible for vocational rehabilitation services, the Vocational Rehabilitation Division (VRD) conducts assessments using the criteria in subsection (b) of this section for vocational rehabilitation needs and, if necessary, rehabilitation technology needs for each customer in order to develop an individualized plan for employment (IPE) that is designed to achieve the customer's employment outcome.
(b) To determine the appropriate employment outcome and services required to achieve it, VRD, as appropriate in each case, may conduct an assessment of the customer's unique strengths, resources, priorities, concerns, abilities, capabilities, interests, and needs, including the need for supported employment services, in the most integrated setting possible, consistent with the informed choice of the customer.
(c) The assessment is limited to information that is necessary to identify the customer's rehabilitation needs and develop the IPE and may, to the extent needed, include:
  (1) an analysis of medical, psychological, vocational, educational, and other related factors that bear on the customer's impediment to employment and rehabilitation needs. Additional examinations are authorized after services are initiated when conditions arise that jeopardize the customer's IPE;
  (2) an analysis of the customer's personality, career interests, interpersonal skills, intelligence and related functional capacities, educational achievement, work experience, vocational aptitudes, personal and social adjustments, and employment opportunities;
  (3) an appraisal of the customer's patterns of work behavior and services needed to acquire occupational skills and to develop work attitudes, work habits, work tolerance, and social and behavioral patterns suitable for successful job performance; and
  (4) an assessment, through provision of rehabilitation technology services, of the customer's capacities to perform in a work environment, including in an integrated setting, to the maximum extent feasible and consistent with the customer's informed choice.
(d) VRD uses, to the maximum extent possible and appropriate and in accordance with confidentiality requirements, existing information, including information that is provided by the customer, the family of the customer, and education agencies.

Source Note: The provisions of this §856.41 adopted to be effective December 10, 2012, 37 TexReg 9651; duplicated effective September 1, 2016, as published in the Texas Register September 2, 2016, 41 TexReg 6773; amended to be effective November 8, 2017, 42 TexReg 6195; amended to be effective December 26, 2022, 47 TexReg 8740