A visual narrative intervention – Serious Storytelling with Images – was proposed to manage interview anxiety and performance. Its ability to evocate significant incidents and enhance narratives construction was evaluated ideographically in two case studies. The findings suggest varying levels of sophistication in interviewee actions, challenges encountered, and perceived roles of images. Counselors can refer to the hierarchical concepts when tailoring interview training and coaching. Further investigation is highly recommended to confirm and measure intervention effects.

Anecdotally, there are frequent reports that peer-facilitated initiatives can be successfully used in employment services. However, in Australia, there is little information about how to effectively deliver peer support. In this paper, we discuss how peer-based interventions might be used to supplement formal return-to-work services and contribute to positive job-seeking outcomes. We illustrate the potential of vocational peer support using a real situation involving a young adult who successfully returned to work soon after sustaining a traumatic injury. Future research should explore the inclusion of various peer support structures and formats as a component of other employment services, to help people with long-term conditions and disabilities achieve a range of vocational outcomes and to guide practice in this area.

Vocational rehabilitation provides guidance and support to individuals with disabilities entering the workforce. Employment plans include considerations of goals, the job market, and pre-existing or trainable skills on the part of job seekers. This process also includes an understanding of the social forces that affect employment goals. Current models of disability include the medical, social, and embodiment models. Each is cognitively based and assumes an element of responsibility or blame, that is, respectively, focused on the individual with a disability, the community, or a combination of these two factors. The difference model of disability offers an alternative understanding of disability by providing an affect-based framework that eliminates the premise of blame. This conceptualization of disability provides a new approach to vocational rehabilitation.

A total of 274 Australian workers aged 45 years and above completed a Work, Retirement, and Health Survey. Results indicated that older workers with work injury have significantly lower expected retirement age compared to those without work injury. The results also indicated that this pattern is still apparent among intrinsically work motivated older workers with high score on self-reported work centrality. Older workers with work injury appear more vulnerable to premature retirement, which has significant negative social and economic consequences for workers, employers, and rehabilitation professionals. It also appears there is a complex relationship between ageing and work injury and the need for rehabilitation professionals to consider work injury prevention strategies for older workers.

People with mental illness and traumatic brain injury experience difficulties in gaining and maintaining employment and have a higher unemployment rate because of their symptoms and poor social skills including cognitive impairments. Cognitive remediation is an intervention developed to improve cognitive functioning such as attention, memory, and problem-solving, by providing them with specific designed cognitive exercises. After practicing those cognitive tasks repetitively and massively, people with cognitive deficits will improve cognitive processes which lead to better cognitive performance. There is evidence supporting the benefits of cognitive remediation in improving employment-related outcome. Thus, it might have a role for job seekers with neuropsychiatric disorders and cognitive dysfunctions.

Psychogenic gait disorders in children and adolescents represent a unique neuropediatric and rehabilitative challenge. The inability to walk frequently strikes abruptly. Triggers are not easily identifiable. Patients are commonly admitted to the hospital in an emergency. In view of the dramatic clinical picture, parents are perturbed. They expect rapid diagnostic clarification and therapy. If physical, laboratory, and X-ray examinations do not disclose any significant pathological findings, parents generally insist on consulting diverse specialists and clinics. The pivotal point of the course of treatment is the parent–doctor–patient relationship. This is notably true when child psychologists or psychiatrists have to be consulted. Typical risks and decision conflicts of the rehabilitation dynamics are described – these are augmented by several case vignettes.

This case study assessed the role of job burnout as it relates to employee organisational commitment. An interview was carried out with a disability support worker and the variables she perceived as contributing to her job burnout, affecting organisational commitment or turnover intentions. The Job Demands-Resources model was used for understanding job burnout; three areas of focus were identified: role ambiguity, role overload, and perceived supervisor support.

Recently, the Progressive Goal Attainment Program has grown in popularity as an intervention for injured workers experiencing psychosocial barriers when returning to work. This article provides an outline of the program and explores its implementation by a workplace rehabilitation provider. Data from 20 participants have been pooled to highlight typical presentations. Key features of the program and outcomes are discussed.

Vocational assessment is the foundation of future vocational choices available to a person with a disability. In a compensable environment with potential for litigation, the assessment process becomes more complex and challenging for claimant, practitioner, and other stakeholders. The purpose of forensic (medicolegal) vocational assessment in Australia is reviewed. Comparison of ethics, qualifications, and experience of Australian forensic assessors (practitioners) and their North American counterparts points to an urgent need for an accreditation framework. This paper discusses microaccreditation as an independent model of training and credentialing of Australian forensic vocational practitioners. Credentialing the forensic vocational practitioner serves to underpin the quality and rigor of vocational assessments undertaken in a highly scrutinized legal market.

A novel inpatient vocational counseling service (named “In-Voc”) was developed and evaluated in three Australian spinal cord injury (SCI) rehabilitation hospitals, aiming to improve vocational outcomes after SCI. The program provided a trained Vocational Counseling Coordinator who worked alongside the allied health team, medical, and nursing staff at each hospital. The Coordinators were interviewed to examine the role expectations and role behaviors associated with the introduction of their novel, vocationally focused, occupational role. The Coordinators’ descriptions of their role behavior were very similar to those defined by rehabilitation counselors in North America. They reported the novel role to be a productive and satisfying one. Encouragingly, the In-Voc program was associated with significantly higher post-injury employment outcomes.