A Role for OT Collaboration With Vocational Rehabilitation Specialists Providing Individualized Community-Based Services to Younger Rural Veterans?

Date Presented Accepted for AOTA INSPIRE 2021 but unable to be presented due to online event limitations. An in-depth description is provided of the implementation of the Veterans Health Administration’s Rural Veterans Tele-Rehabilitation Initiative in supporting development and expansion of individualized community-based vocational services to rural veterans with disabling conditions. Promising practices and opportunities for OT collaborations with vocational rehabilitation specialists were identified. Primary Author and Speaker: Consuelo Kreider Contributing Authors: Zaccheus J. Ahonle, Jennifer L. Hale-Gallardo, Gail Castaneda, Kimberly Findley, and Sergio Romero

“They Did Not Pay Attention or Want to Listen When We Spoke”: Women’s Experiences in a Trafficking-Specific Shelter in Cambodia

Human trafficking is a global challenge that violates fundamental human rights. While the risk factors and health impacts of human trafficking have been well documented, the potential for survivors’ resilience is far less understood. In Southeast Asia, the majority of trafficking-specific services have historically been concentrated in shelters, and yet evidenced-based protocols for shelter services are lacking. This study aligns with the growing literature that emphasizes the importance of feminist and trauma-informed services to support the long-term well-being of survivors of human trafficking. Drawing on qualitative data collected over a 6-year period, the analysis foregrounds the lived experiences and perspectives of 10 women who resided in the same trafficking-specific shelter. Six core themes emerged: being labeled as a victim of human trafficking despite contesting this classification, feeling forced to live in the shelter, a strong desire to leave the shelter environment, disempowering engagement with staff, lack of professionalism among staff, and limitations in vocational services. Collectively, these participant narratives reflect a marked divergence from feminist principles and illustrate the potential for recreating conditions that curtail women’s agency and cause harm within the shelter system. We conclude with a discussion of the implications for a feminist approach to shelter-based service delivery and practice.

Redeeming Reconstruction

The chapter assesses the government-sponsored periodical Carry On, which frequently used the term “spirit” not just to describe the resilience of individual disabled veterans, but also the intellectual and artistic capabilities that distinguished Anglo-Americans from other races and ethnicities. In its run from 1918 to 1919,Carry On showcased the federal government’s new rehabilitative and vocational services by implicitly and explicitly drawing on evolutionary frameworks to show that only Anglo-American men were capable of transforming a prosthetic into a soul-enriching, civilization-advancing device. To make this point clearer, the magazine features several disabled African American soldiers, whose evolutionary stagnancy renders them unable to make prosthetics spiritually transformative instruments. Their depicted deficiencies are similar to the articles’ renderings of German primitiveness and brutality. In this light, the magazine shows just how slippery and manipulative racial codification could be in the opening decades of the twentieth century.

Examining Vocational Rehabilitation Services Provided to Incarcerated Persons With Disabilities

In the U.S. prison system, incarcerated persons with a disability represent a largely marginalized population with limited or inadequate provision of services in prison. In general, once released, ex-offenders face a number of challenges when they reenter society ranging from access to housing, employment, health care, and substance use services. These challenges are generally exacerbated for incarcerated persons with a disability. Overall, there is a dearth of research on rates of vocational services utilization among incarcerated persons with a disability. Using data from the Rehabilitation Services Administration for 30,170 inmates, the results indicate that inmates with cognitive and physical disabilities have the lowest utilization of vocational services overall and across all types of services (educational, job, disability, and other). Furthermore, vocational service utilization varies based on the nature of the disability suggesting distinct programming needs for each group. Implications for access to vocational rehabilitation services and current reentry programming for incarcerated persons with a disability are discussed.

Comparing outcome measures of persons with severe mental illness in vocational rehabilitation programs: a dual perspective of consumers and providers

Objective Vocational rehabilitation for people with severe mental illness (SMI) has many benefits. Among the existing models, supported employment has consistently shown to have better impact on vocational outcomes while the findings on non-vocational outcomes are inconsistent. One source of variation with regard to non-vocational outcomes could be related to differences between consumers’ self-reports and the providers’ point of view. Design A cross-sectional study of people with SMI consuming three different vocational services and their service providers. Setting Data were collected as part of the Israeli Psychiatric Rehabilitation Patient Reported Outcome Measurement project. Participants The current data is based on 3666 pairs of people with SMI consuming vocational services and their service providers. Interventions Vocational services included supported employment, sheltered workshops and vocational support centers. Main Outcome Measures The consumers-filled self-report questionnaires, which consisted of the following patient-reported outcome measurements (PROMs): quality of life, functioning and illness management. Primary professional providers were given instruments that mirrored the ones designed for self-report. Results According to providers’ ratings, supported employment was associated with higher functioning (F = 78.6, P < 0.001) and illness management (F = 33.0, P < 0.001) compared to other vocational services. PROMs revealed that supported employment was associated with higher functioning only (F = 31.5, P < 0.001). Consumers rated themselves higher compared to providers on all measures. Conclusions This study provides a deeper insight into non-vocational outcomes of people with SMI participating in vocational services and suggests differences in perspectives between consumers and providers with regard to outcome measures.