Families in Rehabilitation Counseling

The book stands as a primary text in disability studies on the family and a supporting text in applications with rehabilitation counseling. The emphasis on community opens its value to practitioners, managers, and policy advocates. The first part of the book makes the case from philosophy to praxis for an alternative to current rehabilitation counseling paradigms. Nothing of our current practice is lost, but much is gained in its translation into a social model that places community at the center of a client-centered practice. This approach creates the appropriate space to bring rehabilitation counseling and the family together. Read in synthesis, the first five chapters present the framework for a community-based approach to rehabilitation counseling beyond the family. The second part of the book recounts the family disability experience across disability contexts. Each chapter provides a unique profile that maps the current relationship between rehabilitation counseling and the family experience. These chapters can be read alone as the state of practice and a guide to current rehabilitation counseling interventions. The final part of the book considers a sampling of the professional implications and considerations of moving forward with a community-based model. It explores cultural perspectives on disability and their relationships to family from the vantage point of four established collective identities: Hispanic Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans, and Native Americans.