Vocational rehabilitation and sudden onset disability: Advancing proprietary consumer involvement through improved vocational assessment

Abstract

Sudden onset disability results from an injury or disease process and may disrupt major life activities on many levels. Rehabilitation consumers with sudden onset disabilities are frequently involved with disability insurance systems and often receive services through proprietary rehabilitation programs. Just as rehabilitation consumers served in public and private non-profit venues, proprietary consumers require comprehensive rehabilitation counseling intervention. Regardless of the service setting, rehabilitation counselors share professional practice activities in common: consumer intake, assessment, planning, providing/arranging services, follow-through, and case documentation/closure. Vocational assessment is an integral component of rehabilitation counseling across settings, which provides a valuable opportunity to enhance active consumer participation throughout the rehabilitation process. Traditional assessment practices often fail to promote consumer involvement, resulting in potentially inaccurate or incomplete analysis of residual functional ability, as well as poor consumer participation in planning and direct service activities. Poor consumer participation often translates to rehabilitation outcomes that do not adequately reflect consumer vocational potential or personal needs. Fundamental improvements in the traditional rehabilitation assessment process across settings, with emphasis on practical applications that are immediately available to rehabilitation counselors in the underserved proprietary sector, are discussed. The implications for rehabilitation research are reviewed.