Development of Standards of Practice for VR Practitioners

Why?
The VRA tackled this assignment for numerous reasons: In 2000-2002 the then NVRA participated in government sponsored research by HOST Policy Research into the job definitions and qualifications of those with responsibility in providing employment support, information, advice and guidance for disabled people.

A key finding of this research was that further standards and qualification development work was going to be needed if a suitable range of accredited qualifications is to be made available for the field, and as a pre curser these findings provided the incentive for the VRA to start work on the development of Vocational Rehabilitation Standards of Occupational Practice.

In addition the development of Standards occurred so:

• Vocational Rehabilitation could be consistently defined and understood
• The VRA could meet its goal of client and consumer protection
• Agreed VR Standards of Practice would exist for the field as a whole
• VR would develop as a profession. It needed benchmarks for professional service delivery
• We would have completed a first step towards accreditation. The VRA determined that there would be value in producing a professional self monitoring tool

Who are these Standards for?
These Standards apply to anyone working within Vocational Rehabilitation´s defined Scope of Practice, (see standards page where you can find a FAQ and electronic downloading facility free of charge).

The Scope of Practice reflects most activities with which someone working within Vocational Rehabilitation could engage.

Professional Development
Running alongside the development of Standards of Practice is the work of our Professional Development Committee who are engaged in identifying and as appropriate, developing training and educational opportunities for those engaged at whatever level in VR practice, to enable practitioners to be trained to comply with the Standards of Practice, or to meet stand professional development needs.

Website Development
We hope to make this website a useful means of communication between members and would welcome your comments on what you would find useful. Please contact Ian Martin with your suggestions.

National Issues Days
In response to requests from members, we will put on events where members can get together to focus on a specific issue such as assessment, research, training etc. Please contact Ian Martin for details.