• Intro to Vocational Rehabilitation
  • How VR Helps in Employment
  • What is section 121
• Vocational Counseling
  • Tips from the Field
  • Counselors as Leaders - 7 Traits
  • 7 Critical Traits (continued)
• School to Work Transition
  • The Beginning
  • Preparing Youth for VR
  • Writing a Transition Plan
  • Transition Plan Specifics
  • Academic Instruction
  • Transition Links
• Individual Plan of Employment
  • Setting a Goal
  • Factors to Consider
  • Services on the IPE
  • Developing Job Skills
  • Work & Professionalism
• Services Under IPE
  • Soft Skills: Becoming employable
  • Job Analysis & Job Carving
    • Job Analysis Example # 1
    • Mary's Job
    • Job Analysis Example #2
    • Job Carving
  • Occupational Therapy
  • Spectrum of Services
• Difficult Clients
  • Understanding Difficult People
  • Non-working lifestyle
  • Fear & Hopelessness
  • Fear, Hopelessness & VR
  • Fear & Hopelessness (cont.)
  • Fear & Hopelessness, Part III
  • Clients Don't Want to Work
• Legal Rights
  • Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
    • Legal Rights - IDEA
    • Allan's Story
    • IDEA - Later Changes
    • IDEA links
  • Section 504
    • Accommodations & Modifications
    • Accommodations VS Modifications
• Self-Advocacy
  • Steps to Self-Advocacy
  • Tools of the Trade
• Resources
  • Spirit Lake Resources
  • Under-used Resources
  • VR Links

Vocational Rehabilitation

Helping people with disabilities get and keep jobs

This workshop is part of the Caring for Our People training workshop series. This will be the final workshop in the series to be developed . Vocational rehabilitation is about finding a job, keeping a job and all the steps that lead up to employment. In this workshop, you will hear from many experienced vocational rehabilitation counselors and their clients.

For those new to the field, we begin with an introduction to what vocational rehabilitation is and is not. There are a lot of misconceptions. Sometimes people will stop by the tribal vocational rehabilitation office asking to sign up for classes, thinking it is something like a vocational school. Other people drop by asking for money to get their car repaired, thinking this is social assistance program.

We have tried to cover the topics many people working in the field have told us are a great need. The average person served by most programs is in his or her forties. We have included several pages on transition plans and working with youth in response to the many program staff who told us their concerns that they were not reaching the younger people in their communities.

All of the material you will find on this site is free for your use, including the PowerPoint for school presentations, sample ITP forms, handbooks and newsletters. You can click on any of the topics at left, or, to follow the sequence we use in our workshops, just click on the next arrow you see at the bottom of each screen. If you are interested in having a workshop on your reservation or for your organization, please call Dr. Erich Longie at (701) 351-2175 or email him at ericstev@spiritlakeconsulting.com .