Article

For decades, employment of a person with disabilities has been considered a key
indicator of the success of vocational rehabilitation. There is a link between
the quality of vocational rehabilitation and a better quality of life for service
users; these services have a significant impact on efficiency in the field of
work. Very few authors have researched the qualification and skills of
rehabilitation experts essential for successfully carrying out their professional
activities. The objective of the present study was to investigate the perceived
importance attached to the competencies of vocational rehabilitation
professionals and the frequency of their application at work in three different
countries, which was conducted using a questionnaire that was prepared on the
basis of a questionnaire designed by Australian researchers. Basic competencies
comprise four sets: vocational counselling, professional practice, personal
counselling and rehabilitation case management. Special competencies are composed
of two sets: workplace disability case management and workplace intervention and
programme management. The questionnaire was completed by 131 respondents, of whom
61 were from Slovenia, 34 were from Austria and 36 were from the UK. t-Tests for
two independent samples (sex), analysis of variance (type of education, country)
and Pearson's correlation coefficient were used to compare the perception of
basic and special competencies. The respondents perceived personal counselling,
vocational counselling and management of rehabilitation cases as being the most
important, whereas the least importance was assigned to interventions. In
practice, the respondents used personal counselling most frequently and very few
interventions.

Langue : ANGLAIS