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I am EmployAble walks the reader through the process of vocational training – from enrolment to training to employment – and provides tips based on experience, anecdotes and tools to inspire and support those working with and for disability inclusive technical and vocational training institutes.

The specific aim of this programme was to contribute to quality vocational training for young people with disabilities in Kenya, Rwanda and Ethiopia and create lasting linkages between technical and vocational training institutes and the labour market, thus facilitating decent and sustainable wage or selfemployment for young people with disabilities. This meant not just targeting the young people with disabilities themselves but also local training institutes and private sector actors, in order to work for systemic change.

BACKGROUND:
Women with disabilities are less likely to receive maternal healthcare services compared to women without disabilities. While few studies have reviewed healthcare experience of women with disabilities, no studies have been conducted to understand provider's attitude towards disability in Nepal, yet the attitude and behaviour of healthcare providers may have a significant influence on aspects of care and the use of service by women with disabilities. This study examines healthcare provider's attitudes towards disability and explores the experience of women with disabilities in maternal healthcare service utilization during pregnancy and childbirth.

METHOD:
The study used mixed method approach. An attitude survey was conducted among 396 healthcare providers currently working in public health facilities in Rupandehi district of Nepal. For additional insight, eighteen in-depth interviews with women with disabilities who used maternal healthcare services in a healthcare facility within the study district in their last pregnancy were undertaken. The Attitude Towards Disabled Persons (ATDP) scale score was used to measure the attitudes of healthcare providers. For quantitative data, univariate and multivariate analysis using ANOVA was used to understand the association between outcome and independent variables and qualitative analysis generated and described themes.

Reproductive Health, 2017

"In response to the Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, Médecins Sans Frontières-Operational Centre Brussels (MSF-OCB) decided to concentrate its efforts in the severely affected area of Guiuan and its four surrounding municipalities. The MSF-OCB intervention included a comprehensive approach to mental health, including care for people with pre-existing and post-disaster severe mental disorders. Based on this experience of providing MH care in the first five months after Typhoon Haiyan, we report on the monthly volume of MH activities and beneficiaries; sociodemographic and care seeking characteristics of beneficiaries receiving MH counselling/care, stratified by the severity of their condition; profile and outcomes of patients with severe mental disorders; prescribing practice of psychotropic medication; and main factors facilitating the identification and management of individuals with severe mental disorders"

International Health, Vol.8, No.5, pp. 336-344

Doi: 10.1093/inthealth/ihw032

"Brain-machine interfaces (BMIs) provide a new assistive strategy aimed at restoring mobility in severely paralyzed patients. Yet, no study in animals or in human subjects has indicated that long-term BMI training could induce any type of clinical recovery. Eight chronic (3–13 years) spinal cord injury (SCI) paraplegics were subjected to long-term training (12 months) with a multi-stage BMI-based gait neurorehabilitation paradigm aimed at restoring locomotion. This paradigm combined intense immersive virtual reality training, enriched visual-tactile feedback, and walking with two EEG-controlled robotic actuators, including a custom-designed lower limb exoskeleton capable of delivering tactile feedback to subjects. Following 12 months of training with this paradigm, all eight patients experienced neurological improvements in somatic sensation (pain localization, fine/crude touch, and proprioceptive sensing) in multiple dermatomes. Patients also regained voluntary motor control in key muscles below the SCI level, as measured by EMGs, resulting in marked improvement in their walking index. As a result, 50% of these patients were upgraded to an incomplete paraplegia classification. Neurological recovery was paralleled by the reemergence of lower limb motor imagery at cortical level". It is hypothesised that this unprecedented neurological recovery results from both cortical and spinal cord plasticity triggered by long-term BMI usage."

Scientific Reports 6, Article number: 30383 (2016)
doi:10.1038/srep30383

Purpose:

Currently, there is no internationally accepted way to measure the competency of wheelchair service professionals. The International Society of Wheelchair Professionals aims to develop a Wheelchair Service Provision – Basic Test as a preliminary step towards establishing a certification process. 

Method:

A team of wheelchair service provision experts developed test questions and conducted alpha and beta testing in order to validate them. Low-performing test items were eliminated. A pilot test was then conducted, which focused on developing a pass score, determining language barriers and validating the test as a measure of competency. 

Results:

90 participants completed one of three versions of the Wheelchair Service Provision – Basic Test. A pass score of 70% was established and 135 questions were accepted for the final test. Analysis of variance indicated there was a difference in scores based on language (p = 0.001), but not based on experience level. This result motivated translation in to the United Nations’ official languages.

Conclusions:

The results indicate that the Wheelchair Service Provision – Basic Test is a valid method for measuring basic competency of wheelchair professionals. Additionally, researchers recommend a skills assessment to help to ensure only qualified wheelchair professionals receive the certificate.

The role of rehabilitation professionals in responding to Sudden Onset Disasters (SODs) is evolving rapidly, and our professions increasingly find themselves at the forefront of emergency response teams. At the same time, there is a movement towards the professionalisation of the humanitarian response sector, in particular Emergency Medical Teams, and a recognition that specialist training is required to prepare professionals for work in an austere humanitarian environment. The intended audience of the manual are physiotherapists and occupational therapists who may deploy to provide rehabilitation in the immediate aftermath of a sudden onset disaster. It was developed to support volunteers on the UK International Emergency Trauma Register (UKIETR), but with the aim of being relevant to all rehabilitation professionals interested in rapid deployment to austere environments. The content is restricted to the context of sudden onset disasters such as an earthquake or tsunami, and has been developed to support work in an austere environment, where the type of equipment and support that is normally available has been disrupted. UKIETR professionals are UK based volunteers who receive specialist training to prepare them for international deployment as part of team in response to emergencies. They may be deployed within a multi-disciplinary foreign medical team in a field hospital scenario, or as part of a more specialist ‘cell’ offering niche medical, surgical or rehabilitation services. The manual is designed to complement the three day core rehabilitation training run by Handicap International which all UKIETR members must attend. It is a clinical manual, and the contents are directly linked to modules taught on the core training course. In addition there are a number of ‘cheat sheets’ and patient education resources at the back of the manual which are designed to be used in the field. Chapters include: rehabilitation and the UKIETR; introduction to rehabilitation following sudden onset disasters; amputee rehabilitation; spinal cord injury; peripheral nerve injury; fractures; burns and soft tissue injury; and acquired brain injury

This report is a supplement to the Technical Report 'Capacity Building for Disability Inclusive Disaster Risk Reduction in Indonesia'. Disability Inclusive Disaster Risk Reduction (DiDRR) is increasingly recognised as an important component of community resilience in the event of a natural disaster as documented in the recent outcome of the 3rd World Conference, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030. Central to DiDDR is people with disabilities themselves and their capacities to participate in, and contribute to disaster risk reduction policies, practices and programs

The Practitioner Guidelines provide orientation to the Work Packages undertaken to build the capacity of people with disabilities in disaster risk reduction in Indonesia as part of the Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Australian Development and Research Awards Scheme funded project, 2013-2015, Promoting the Inclusion of People with Disabilities in Disaster Management in Indonesia. These Work Packages formed one component of the project with knowledge transfer and capacity building supplemented by other methods within the project, including coaching and sponsoring participation of select trainees at key post-2015 DRR policy events

This report, the fifth edition in the Disability at a Glance series, focuses on barriers to the employment of persons with disabilities in the Asia-Pacific region, and offers solutions to strengthen their employment prospects. It offers a regional overview of disability legislation, policies and practices, as well as relevant country-specific information with a particular emphasis on the employment of persons with disabilities. The information is drawn from a targeted disability survey carried out in 2015 by the ESCAP secretariat, and research undertaken by other organizations and scholars.

The publication consists mainly of two parts. In Part 1, Chapter 1 discusses key employment trends shaping the experiences of persons with disabilities in Asia and the Pacific. Chapter 2 considers the major barriers that persons with disabilities face as they seek to find decent work in the open labour market. Chapter 3 explores a number of strategies used by governments and in the private sector to promote greater access to employment for persons with disabilities. Finally, Chapter 4 lays out a series of action points governments should consider in their efforts to remove the numerous employment barriers faced by many millions of disabled people. In Part 2, country snapshots provide the latest demographic, socioeconomic and employment-specific data from 58 countries in 5 ESCAP subregions .

This paper focuses on the experiences of visually and hearing impaired children in Vietnam, a country where lay-based cultural beliefs predominantly shape understanding of any form of disability. The practice of ancestral worship informs a belief that disabilities are a punishment for wrong deeds in past lives, and as a result people with disabilities are often marginalized. Such reactions are sometimes taken to extremes: circumstantial evidence suggests that disabled children are even likely to be killed at birth. Others might simply be hidden away or rejected into the local orphanage. This paper discusses the therapeutic support on offer to children attending two types of educational settings, and explores how the wider school and local community considered and treated such children, examining the chosen forms of intervention in each institution from an ethnographic perspective. The first was a mainstream school with a specialist vocational training unit for visually impaired children, and the second was a specialist school for children who were hearing impaired and who were taught only to lip read and speak.

Disability and the Global South (DGS), 2015, Vol. 2 No. 2