Vocational Rehabilitation PDF

VOCATIONAL REHABILITATION Vocational Rehabilitation (VR): It is an important part of the comprehensive rehabilitation but is exclusively related to handicapped youth and persons of working age. It is also applicable to those handicapped persons who are able to work. It is a p...

VOCATIONAL REHABILITATION Vocational Rehabilitation (VR): It is an important part of the comprehensive rehabilitation but is exclusively related to handicapped youth and persons of working age. It is also applicable to those handicapped persons who are able to work. It is a process of preparation for work and placing disabled person on a suitable job. Vocational Rehabilitation (VR): VR is defined as a part of the continuous and coordinated process of the rehabilitation which involves providing vocational services as: vocational guidance, vocational training and selective placement designed to enable a disabled person to secure an appropriate employment. Preparation for work: It is proceeded by vocational evaluation and guidance or counseling. This phase of VR is very important because it influences the success of the whole VR process. Preparation for work is normally done through: Vocational training, which is a series of activities that aimed at providing the disabled person with knowledge, skills and attitudes required for employment. Then, placing the disable person on a suitable job according to their mental and physical capacities, acquired vocational qualifications, age, sex and any other factors. Follow-up is also required to investigate if the disabled worker is still needing any further work adjustments. Vocational Guidance: Vocational guidance is also an essential part of the vocational rehabilitation. It is the process of evaluating a person’s:  physical and mental abilities  personal attitudes and preferences In order to determine if a person still require further education, training or placements. All necessary and practicable measures should be taken to establish or develop specialized vocational guidance for disabled people to help them to choose, cope or change their occupations. The process of vocational guidance should include: 1. Interview with a vocational guidance officer. 2. Examination of record of work experience. 3. Inspection of qualifications or training received. 4. Medical examination for vocational guidance purposes. 5. Psychological tests such as the capacity and attitude testing. 6. Ascertainment of personal and family circumstances. 7. Ascertainment of attitudes and the development of abilities by appropriate work experiences. 8. Analysis of physical capacity in relation to occupational requirements and possibility of improving that capacity. 9. Providing information concerning employment and training opportunities. Stages of the vocational guidance process: Is the process of measurement of the handicapped individual's ability to do a productive work and a determination of their work potential. Is the process of assisting individuals to choose their occupation, taking into account their characteristics and the employment opportunities. Vocational counseling is based on vocational evaluation. The term vocational counseling is often used when speaking about vocational guidance for adults. Vocational evaluation for disabled persons should precede the start of any vocational training or employment program. It is usually done to predict a disabled person's ability to benefit from vocational rehabilitation services. It should reveal if a disable person is:  Trainable.  Employable.  Expected to succeed in the vocational rehabilitation program. The vocational evaluation should be comprehensive and involve assessment of all aspect of ability to function. Components of the comprehensive evaluation process : A. Social evaluation. B. Medical evaluation. C. Psychological evaluation. D. Work evaluation through work sample technique. A. Social evaluation: – Social evaluation is the responsibility of the social worker. – The social worker is usually the first person who contacts disabled people before their vocational rehabilitation starts. Social evaluation consists of the following: 1. Assessment of social situation of the disabled persons which may have an effect on their training and employment, as: Marital status: Single, married, divorced, widowed. Children: Number of them and their ages. Residence (place of living): Village, small town, large town and its characteristics - rural or industrial area. Relations with family members and their interest in his/her rehabilitation. Standard of living: source of income. Housing problems. 2. Assessment of transport problems. 3. Preliminary assessment of their attitude toward vocational rehabilitation and wishes regarding future training and employment. B. Medical evaluation: The physician is the major contributor to the evaluation process of the disabled persons. By means of medical evaluation, physician provides necessary information on their work capacity taking into consideration physical (medical) factors. Medical evaluation should include: 1. Diagnosis. It should include the following: – Information about the disability:  Etiology  Diagnosis  Information regarding any functional limitations imposed by disability such as physical impairments, dysfunctions, deformities..etc. – Information regarding the kind of work that should be avoided and inappropriate work conditions to the evaluated person. 2. Prognosis - what is the future course of the disability or impairments or handicap: Stable: Stability at the present level. Progressive: Deterioration leading to more severe status. Improving: Leading to advancement or complete or almost complete recovery. Instable: Periods of collapse with good function in between. 3. The required medical services and/or assistive devices and technologies. 4. Suggestions on: a. Most suitable type of work and/or vocational training. b. Most acceptable working conditions. c. Medical restrictions on working hours (full time or part-time employment, morning or night shifts, etc). The results of the medical evaluation should be presented in a special report and taken into account at the case conference.  C. Psychological evaluation: Is an important part of the general vocational evaluation. It is conducted by psychologist. It is expected that the psychological evaluation will provide information on the client’s educational level, work experience, mental abilities and attitudes, vocational interest, attitude (motivation) toward rehabilitation and other personality characteristics (traits). It should also reveal all psychological problems such as lack of acceptance of the disability; attitude toward able-bodied persons and behavioral disorders which may affects the client's work potential and work adjustment. D. Work evaluation through work sample technique: This technique is used for evaluating the work potential of handicapped people (especially severely handicapped). It is a standardized method. A work sample is a test that is an actual or a simulated job. It may be an actual job, administered and observed under standard conditions or it may be a mock-up of components of a job. It could be a job that made up by the evaluator to resemble an actual job in industry or business and to measure traits important to successful employment. The work sample technique makes it possible not only to measure the vocational aptitudes, abilities, skills, but also personal characteristics which are necessary for successful vocational training and employment. Factors that should be observed during the work sample tests: 1. Interests 2. Work tolerance 3. Work habits 4. Attitudes 5. Motivation  1. Interests: The measurement of the client’s vocational interests is the responsibility of the vocational counselor and vocational evaluator. During the work evaluation through the work sample tests, the evaluator should specify the type of interest in the tested vocational area (i.e. interested or notinterested). 2. Work tolerance: It is also an important factor, especially when the severely handicapped persons are evaluated. 3. Work habits: These are critical to the clients without previous job experience. Work habits are understood as such personality traits as: carefulness, productiveness, perfection, attendance and punctuality 4. Attitudes: Ratings of attitudes in various employment situations. Special attention should be given to the client's attitude towards his/her own disability, i.e. To what extent the disabled person is accepting his/her limitations. It is critical to the evaluator to find out if the client is determine and able to overcome his/her disability (i.e. self-confident) before starting any vocational rehabilitation. 5. Motivation: The client must be well or highly motivated towards the achievement of vocational goals. Attitudes on such matters as ambition, alertness, resourcefulness, initiative, cooperativeness should be at the highest level of the vocational evaluator's concerns. To get a complete picture of the general employability, client's attitudes and relationships with fellow workers and supervisors must be evaluated by conducting a work evaluation in a group situation. Vocational evaluator: Vocational evaluator is responsible about the work evaluation for disabled people through the work sample technique. In this process, the vocational evaluator should be closely cooperates with the workshop instructor. Vocational evaluator should possess: General qualifications. Specific qualifications. General qualifications of the vocational evaluator: 1. Basic knowledge about disabilities and rehabilitation. 2. Positive attitudes toward disabled people and a genuine interest in helping and working with them. 3. An ability to work in a team with the workshop instructor and as a member of the evaluation team at the case conference (evaluation committee). 4. An ability to communicate easily with clients and express their feelings, findings and recommendations orally and in a written format. Specific qualifications of the vocational evaluator: 1. A good teacher: Must be able to instruct the client to do activities that involved in the work sample tests and use a wide range of tools, machinery and different sorts of materials. 2. A good diagnostician: a. Analyze abilities, aptitudes, skills that could be noticed via the performance of a client in the work sample testes. b. Analyze the client's training and employment potential for various and specific jobs in terms of the results achieved by the work evaluation. c. Apply the appropriate quality standards and performance rates in the assessment of the client's performance of the tests. 3. Knowledge about client-job matching: Correlate the client's abilities, attitudes and skills with the requirements of various occupations to established job analysis. 4. Industrial experience: Having knowledge about various vocational areas, working conditions and training and employment opportunities in the open market.  It is a process of assisting disabled person to choose an occupation based on their characteristics and their relation to employment opportunities. It is based upon free and voluntary choice. It aims towards giving the disabled persons full opportunity for personal development and work satisfaction (the most effective use of national manpower). Before assisting disabled persons, vocational counselor, should learn about the client's work potential and employment opportunities. Vocational counseling must be based on realistic factors, as clients who are looking for vocational counseling may not have accurate ideas about their work potential (i.e. some of them may over- or under-estimate their suitability for the vocational training and employment). The components of the vocational counseling are: 1. Having information about the social factors that may influence the client's vocational career. 2. Having information about the client’s disability and the related limitations. 3. Having information about the education, job experience, interests, etc. by interviewing the client or a member of the client’s family. 4. Having information about the client's abilities and attitudes using psychological tests. 5. Having information about the client's work potential through work sample technique. 6. Having information about the vocational goals of the client. 7. Final acceptance of the vocational rehabilitation plan (program) by the case conference in presence of the client. The case conference should: 1 Make decision about the trainability of the evaluated client. 2 Make a decision about the vocational rehabilitation program taken by the client, vocational rehabilitation center, sheltered workshop or integrated system. 3 Make decision about the most suitable training course for the client. 4 Formulate a rehabilitation plan for the client including all types of rehabilitation services planned for them.  Case conferences should also act during the training period in order to: 1.Assess achievements and failures of the client periodically. 2.Correct and modify the rehabilitation plan. 3.Make a decision on completion of the training and refer clients for employment. – The leading role in the conference should be that of the counselor. – The counselor should refer clients to the conference and bring forward the final decision about their vocational rehabilitation plan. – Other members of the conference should shortly report on their findings and explain any questions that may have arisen and problems concerning their responsibilities. Placement officer: Is a member of the rehabilitation team who prepare reports about the employment opportunities for disabled clients. –Frequently, the disabled is suitable for an occupation but it may be difficult to find a similar job in his/her area. –The placement officer's role is to prevent some disappointments which could face the client if they don’t find suitable jobs for their qualifications and interest. Vocational rehabilitation plan: – The client's vocational rehabilitation plan should comprise all services in order to achieve the final goal (successful employment). – It should not only list the typical vocational services but also improve the client's work potentials. – Services suggested by the conference can be divided into: 1. Medical rehabilitation services to improve the functional status. 2. Rehabilitation counseling and counseling of the family. 3.General and vocational education 4.Type of employment 5.Others, for non-trainable and unemployable clients, services provided by the social services authorities. (1) Medical rehabilitation services to improve the functional state of the human being such as: a) Medical treatment or surgery, b) Orthopedic appliances and technical aids. c) Occupational therapy. d) Instruction to improve the activities of daily living. (2) Rehabilitation counseling and counseling of the family. (3) General and vocational education, such as: a) Literacy course. b) Primary education in schools with normal/healthy children. c) Vocational education in regular school or vocational course with ablebodied. d) Vocational training in a vocational rehabilitation center (vocational area and type of training). e) Long-term training in a sheltered workshop (work adjustment). (4) Type of employments: a) Open employment. b) Sheltered employment. c) Working from home. d) Self-employment. (5). Others, for non-trainable and unemployable clients, services provided by the social services authorities, such as: a) Help in adjusting to the living conditions in the family. b) Institutional care - special centers. The decision made by the conference with the client's acceptance should be registered in the final vocational Evaluation Report. Vocational counseling should be extended for the period of vocational training and employment, if necessary. Vocational counselor should be aware about the techniques that improve the counseling relationship. The counseling sessions can be divided into 3 types: A) The sessions in which the purpose is to provide information to the client: This type is applied if the client is mostly looking for general vocational orientation, i.e. for information on vocational training and employment opportunities for people with a disability. (B) The sessions in which the purpose is to provide information to the counselor: –This one takes place in the first phase of the vocational counseling when the client is interviewed to get information on his/her educational background, job history, interests, motivation, etc. (C) The sessions in which the purpose is to solve a problem as in the joint selection of the client's vocational goals. –These can be called the genuine counseling sessions in which advice is given to the client. Good luck