Opportunities for Rehabilitation Counselors

Skills Required by Rehabilitation Counselors Providing Consultation to Employers on ADA Practices

A rehabilitation counselor consultant performs a job analysis involving site observation of workers in their various roles. It might also include interviewing supervisors regarding different jobs to understand the cognitive, intellectual, and physical abilities required. The information generated helps an employer to write accurate and non-discriminatory descriptions to comply with the ADA requirements. Rehabilitation counselors have the primary role of coordinating with employers to ensure that employers understand the ADA requirements and abide by its provisions. Therefore, rehabilitation counselors must have a great understanding of the ADA provisions and those that are clarified and vague through the case law. This means that they must have extensive knowledge of the law as the primary skill. Additionally, they must have practical communication skills, mainly to communicate the legal requirements to the supervisors and employers. They must also possess extensive assistive technologies knowledge, including non-technological modifications that are easy to implement and relatively affordable (Rosenthal et al., 2007).

This is related to their role of recommending modifications to a job that do not necessarily compromise the essential functions but instead allows for the accessibility of the...

They must also be knowledgeable, especially about resources for modification, since educating employers regarding modification resources and addressing biases they might practice towards employing disabled individuals is also part of their role (Stensrud, 2007). Also, they must possess compassion as a skill...…working knowledge of the ADA provisions but has made significant accommodations for disabled employees. This gap has provided the rehabilitation counselors with the opportunity to collaborate with employers and increase ADA awareness for employers while being resource people to the employment community. Since the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) passing, employers have constantly shown their openness to hire people with disabilities. Research has, however, concluded that despite this openness, little hiring had taken place. In such situations and business environments, rehabilitation counselors should rethink how to do their jobs. Researchers should do more work on building the current knowledge regarding employers. The researchers should also probe deeply into the employer's ability to provide individuals with disabilities a competitive advantage in the job market (Young,…