Vocational Rehabilitation Counseling / Work Retraining

Vocational Rehabilitation Counseling is performed when a career has been lost, or a new career is needed. Typically this service is provided in work compensation or long-term disability insurance purposes where services of a counselor are retained by an insurance company. Upon completion of an Ability to Work Assessment or Vocational Evaluation, vocational rehabilitation services determine a method and sequence of services to restore an injured or disabled worker back into the work force. This typically involves counseling on job or career loss relating to an injury/accident; knowledge of insurance requirements; skills enhancement or complete retraining for a new vocation; disclosure of disability in work search efforts; and it may involve accommodation of the disability by ergonomic or other adaptive devices.
 

This type of service incorporates:

• Review of prior work and education, skills and abilities, and residual functional capacities.
• Review of prior method of acquiring new learning, skills, and experience.
  Assessment of adjustment to disability issues, and case management needed to assist the individual.
• Determination of the individual's ability to participate to mutually develop new job goal/training goal, and the engagement of the individual to participate (mitigation) in new career identification by school and employer research.
• Observation of barriers, secondary gain, or other non-productive actions, and determination of resources to ameliorate problems in the identification and participation of the individual.
• Vocational testing to determine aptitude, interest, skill level, present educational functioning level, temperament, and/or learning styles.
• In cases of physical injury, specific restrictions and limitations must be obtained by a medical professional.
• In cases of mental or cognitive injury, specific restrictions must be assessed by a medical or other professional; concurrently, the implications for new learning and skills acquisition must be determined along with behavioral and temperament issues.
  Adaptive or ergonomic equipment needs are assessed.
• Labor market assessment will be conducted to determine: hiring requirements for the new occupation, opportunity to gain work after training, determination of physical or mental job requirements, accommodation or ergonomic issues needed in the new work, and earning capacity.
• Medical or psychological/psychiatric concurrence (approval) for the job goal.
  Assessment of services needed to assist the individual during job search.
• Determination of time and cost factors to implement a training program, including the probable services needed to affect a decrease in the barriers to return to work. Barbara’s skills include the ability to conduct an evaluation, or to analyze other professional evaluations or testimony for mediation or testimony purposes.

These services are performed in worker compensation pursuant to WAC 296.19A and RCW 51.32.095. In long-term disability insurance cases, these are determined and negotiated with the carrier and the insurance policy provisions. These services may be utilized in marriage dissolution when the spouse requests assistance, due to a disability issue, to participate in career goal development to reduce costs and to mitigate losses.