Vocational rehabilitation

In career development it is useful for us to consider strategies for our clients when they are planning a return to the workforce after any type of career break, be that positive - travel, parenthood - or negative - illness, or injury (Dodds & Herkt, 2013).

Our lives can truly change in the blink of an eye: with flood, fire, economics, redundancy, or moving having significant consequences on someone's life and work. If, for example, our clients have had a work break due to injury or illness, they may face a career transition, often determined by factors outside their control - such as ACC determining they cannot return to their pre-injury occupation. This may often result in them having significant anxiety levels due to, after a long spell of recovery outside the normal world of work, an uncertain future seeking employment in an unfamiliar field (Fadyl, 2013). Clients often have physical or mental limitations which may preclude them from work in a broad range of positions; in fact, a quarter of our population in Aotearoa "are limited by a physical, sensory, learning, mental health or other impairment” (Office for Disability Issues, 2016).

Even if our client have themselves determined that they lack the capacity for a return to their previous role, they will have some level of anxiety about working again, particularly as they can "become physically de-conditioned as they [may] enter into a cycle of hopelessness, anxiety and depression" (MacEachen et al., 2010, p. 351). We must deal actively by referring on clients who present with "distress [so it can...] be evaluated and addressed, not ignored, avoided, or presumed to subside over time" (MacEachen et al., 2010, p. 361).

In the career vocational rehabilitation field, we tend to focus on pre-employment preparation, short-term training interventions to assist clients with their career transitions, and coaching our clients through the process. It must be noted that these activities alone may not be enough for a client to secure an entry level position in a more sedentary - and cerebral - occupation (Fadyl, 2013). 

A lack of any formal qualifications can be a serious impediment to a positive employment outcome. We can significantly decrease the likelihood of long-term unemployment for our clients by encouraging them to gain at least one educational qualification (Erwin et al., 2019). Encouraging clients to be life-long learners will benefit them hugely, but any programme must to allow for the client not yet being "a healthy, able, school-oriented and competitive worker" (MacEachen et al., 2010, p. 358).

Employers’ tend to have negative perceptions the long-term unemployed (Fadyl, 2013; Kroft et al., 2013), so suggesting a work placement so the employer gets to know our client is more likely to lead to an employment contract than is cold calling.

Collectively these strategies can help to reignite someone's working career, to enable our clients to regain that "sense of self if work has previously been important, maintaining or achieving a desired place in society, or the ability to perform other important life roles within the family and community" (Young et al., 2005, p. 546).

Sam

References:

Dodds, K., & Herkt, J. (2013). Exploring transition back to occupational therapy practice following a career break. New Zealand Journal of Occupational Therapy, 60(2), 5-12.

Erwin, C., Dasgupta, K., & Pacheco, G. (2019). Characterising New Zealand’s underutilised workforce: Evidence from the Household Labour Force Survey [report]. https://www.mbie.govt.nz/dmsdocument/6976-characterising-new-zealands-underutilised-workforce-evidence-from-the-household-labour-force-survey-pdf

Fadyl, J. K. (2013). Re-working disability: A Foucauldian discourse analysis of vocational rehabilitation in Aotearoa New Zealand (Doctoral dissertation, Auckland University of Technology). https://openrepository.aut.ac.nz/server/api/core/bitstreams/9d0d8bd5-082d-48ca-9c54-24998850f364/content

Kroft, K., Lange, F., & Notowidigdo, M. J. (2013). Duration Dependence and Labor Market Conditions: Evidence from a Field Experiment. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 128(3), 1123–1167. https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjt015

MacEachen, E., Kosny, A., Ferrier, S., & Chambers, L. (2010). The “toxic dose” of system problems: why some injured workers don’t return to work as expected. Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation, 20(4), 349-366. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10926-010-9229-5

Office for Disability Issues. (2016, December). Key facts about disability in New Zealand. https://www.odi.govt.nz/home/about-disability/key-facts-about-disability-in-new-zealand/

Young, A. E., Wasiak, R., Roessler, R. T., McPherson, K. M., Anema, J. R., & Van Poppel, M. N. (2005). Return-to-work outcomes following work disability: stakeholder motivations, interests and concerns. Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation, 15(4), 543-556. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10926-005-8033-0