Rehabiltiation and Education must work together.

In my country we have two systems which 28 years ago were given a mandate to help the disabled.If these two had worked together then most likely checks would have been placed upon a now unchecked rise of disability. The two systems are: the rehabilitation system and the educational system. The rehabilitation system was mandated to help the long term disabled and the educational systems mandate was to insure that the disabled received the appropriate education which would enable them to become employed and reintegrated into society. However it appears that something got in the way of each fully complying with its mandates The rehabilitation system may not have fully complied with its mandates because of its funding mechanism and the educational system may have failed because local bureaucrats were more interested in getting re-elected than in truely insuring that the disabled received appropriate education.

Appropriate education would have moved the disabled from dependence upon government to dependence upon their own skills and abilities. Appropriate education would have provided the disabled with a great equalizer. This equalizer is called employment. It leads to a higher degree of self-sufficiency and independence. Self sufficiency and independence lead to greater degree of empowerment. Self-sufficiency, independence and empowerment. All lead to a greater degree of inclusion for disabled citizen.

The rehabilitation system failed the disabled because its funding system is based upon closure. Closure based funding is detrimental to the long term disabled.Under it they may discover that they only receive token rehabilitation. You become a client, then you are terminated and six months later you are reinstated. Reinstatement starts the whole process over and most likely no true rehabilitive help will be provided.

If the disabled are truely to be helped then another form of funding needs to be instituted. This form is called performance funding. It is dependent upon the number of clients placed back into the workforce not the number of cases opened and closed each year. Performance based funding would most likely insure that the long term disabled will actually receive effective rehabilitation. Under it they will not be subjected to the revolving door rehabilitative approach called closure.

If the disabled are truely to become dependent upon their own skills and abilities then rehabilitation and education must work in tandem. Until this happens then the rise of disability may never be adequately checked.

Go To Page: 1

Articles in this Topic    Discussions in this Topic