FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – A simple solution is not always the best when complex systems need to be improved: that was the message a University of Arkansas professor took to the Clinton Foundation’s recent annual Health Matters summit in California.

Brent Thomas Williams took part in a panel discussion during which he explained how the Arkansas PROMISE program will provide paid work experiences for teens with disabilities. The panel focused on how programs such as PROMISE could be implemented on different scales ranging from small communities to entire countries.

Williams, associate professor of rehabilitation education and research, is the principal investigator of the federally funded $32.4 million project based in the College of Education and Health Professions at the U of A. The Clinton Foundation produced a video about the PROMISE program that features an interview with project director Philip Adams and a teen participant and his father.

Williams told the community leaders invited to the summit in late January that, sometimes, the simple solution is not what will work the best.

“There is a perception that simplicity is a telltale sign of efficiency,” he said. “If something is simple, it must be the right answer. If you find the right solution, you’ll know because it’s simply elegant.”

However, Williams countered that a theoretical physicist or molecular biologist will tell you that the most efficient systems in the world are also incredibly complex.

“We are providing services for people with disabilities in a highly complex system and until we stop looking for simple answers we may not get a lot done,” he said. “The buzzwords during the summit were disruptive innovation. This was a group of people who came up with new approaches, who did things in a different way to attack long-standing problems that have been hard to address.”

The goal of Arkansas PROMISE is to improve the career and education outcomes of low-income Arkansas teenagers with disabilities who receive Supplemental Security Income. With about 670 teens enrolled at the end of February, PROMISE staff are one-third of the way toward their goal of enrolling 2,000 youth in the program. Half of the group of teens will receive the additional training and paid work experiences along with other services, and the other half will receive only the usual services provided to teens with disabilities. Researchers and data analysts will compare results of the two groups at the end of the five-year grant period to determine whether the program was effective in helping teens with disabilities remain employed and get off SSI.

“In the case of PROMISE, it has more to do with intensity and coordination,” Williams continued. “Any state vocational rehabilitation worker has a caseload of 200 to 300 people with disabilities. Our PROMISE case managers have a caseload of 20.”

PROMISE isn’t necessarily doing anything new, but the model has more collaboration and intensity built in than is found in the usual service delivery system for people with disabilities, Williams said.

“We offer divergent services in a highly concentrated way to see if that changes outcomes,” he said. “If we bring resources together in a way that hasn’t been done before, can we affect outcomes? That is the question we are trying to answer.”

Officials with the Clinton Foundation are interested in the Arkansas PROMISE model, Williams said.

“Even though PROMISE is a research-based program, its design is very scalable,” he said. “We will adhere strictly to a research-based structure in order to determine effectiveness of the program, but that doesn’t mean our model can’t be used and altered so that other programs can use it.”

The PROMISE program partners with several other groups to provide various service components such as benefits counseling for families and job training. The Clinton Foundation provides nutrition, wellness and healthy living programs for the teen PROMISE participants and their families.

“We realize that the reason families are at or below the poverty line isn’t solely because they have a child with a disability,” Williams said. “They may be forced, because of lack of services, to quit a job to care for a child. People with a reduced income have a much more difficult time living healthy lifestyles, more difficulty buying and cooking healthy food.”

About the University of Arkansas: The University of Arkansas provides an internationally competitive education for undergraduate and graduate students in more than 200 academic programs. The university contributes new knowledge, economic development, basic and applied research, and creative activity while also providing service to academic and professional disciplines. The Carnegie Foundation classifies the University of Arkansas among only 2 percent of universities in America that have the highest level of research activity. U.S. News & World Report ranks the University of Arkansas among its top American public research universities. Founded in 1871, the University of Arkansas comprises 10 colleges and schools and maintains a low student-to-faculty ratio of that promotes personal attention and close mentoring.