ROLES AND FUNCTIONS OF REHABILITATION COUNSELORS

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ROLES AND FUNCTIONS OF REHABILITATION COUNSELORS

• BCE 541 (CASE MANAGEMENT IN REHABILITATION
  COUNSELING)
• DR. DUNN
• September 3, 2002

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At the end of this lecture you should
know/understand

• A brief history of the rehabilitation profession
• Role and function studies, their purpose and use
• Trends in RC roles and functions
• Burnout and how to reduce its effects
• What is the research dilemma present in role and
  function research?

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Development of Rehabilitation 1920 to present

• Smith-Fess Act of 1920 Established state-federal
  VR program.
• VR Act Amendments of 1954 Provided grants to
  universities to develop rehabilitation counseling
  programs
• 1954-present RSA traineeships Certification and
  increased professionalization.

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Role and Function Studies

• Purpose Define what rehabilitation counselors
  should be doing and Describe what they are doing.
• Uses
• Certification Exams
• Curriculum Development

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Defining Rehabilitation Counselor

• Distinctions that have been made
• Counselor vs. coordinator
• Problem Solver
• Case Manager
• Rehabilitation Clinician
• Vocational Specialist

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Major Studies of Rehabilitation Counselor Roles
and Functions

• Muthard and Salamone (1969) First major study.
  Found eight factors in job tasks
• Vocational Counseling
• Affective Counseling
• Test Administration
• Test Interpretation
• Eligibility Determination/Case Finding
• Medical Referral
• Group Work
• Job Placement

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Muthard and Salamone, Cont.

• Counseling Tasks were one-third of the job.
• Clerical and record-keeping tasks required about
  one-fifth of the RCs job.
• Muthard and Salamones study was used to begin
  construction of CRC examination

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Rubin Emener (1979) and Zadny James (1977)

• Found that the job tasks remained basically the
  same as those present in Muthard and Salamones
  study, but that the time devoted to specific
  tasks had changed. Counselors were devoting less
  time to counseling and more time to clerical and
  record-keeping tasks.

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More Recent Studies

• Confirm earlier findings and indicate that trend
  toward more involvement in non-counseling tasks
  is continuing.

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Comparing the Studies

• Roessler and Rubin, in the text, have examined
  the role and function studies and identify four
  job task areas
• Case management
• Vocational Counseling and Assessment
• Affective counseling
• Job Placement

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Case management tasks

• Intake Interviewing
• Services Coordination
• Case Recording and Reporting

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Vocational Assessment and Counseling Tasks

• Vocational Assessment
• Vocational Counseling

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Affective Counseling

• Adjustment to Disability
• Work Adjustment
• Facilitate Self Exploration
• Discussing Problems and Opportunities

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Job Placement

• Placement Counseling
• Job Development

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BURNOUT
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BURNOUT

• Feeling of helplessness, hopelessness,
  ineffectiveness.
• Caused by having ever increasing demands and
  decreasing resources.
• Relieving Burnout
• Change the work environment and clarify
  expectations
• Stress management
• Create diversions to break up unavoidable
  stressful activities.

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Ultimate Value of Role and Function Research to
Rehabilitation

• Does role and function research really help
  rehabilitation?
• Should research classify what RCs are doing
• OR
• Should it tell us what we should be doing and how
  to do it?