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Rehabilitation Counseling program receives $750,000 grant

August 2009

A five-year $750,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Education will enable the Rehabilitation Counseling master's program to provide tuition and living stipends for eight students.

The project, "Preparing Rehabilitation Counselors for Customer Service Provision and Challenges and Benefits of a State Agency Career,'' will prepare students for careers in vocational rehabilitation. In addition to preparing rehabilitation counselors to provide high-quality services for people with disabilities regardless of prevailing economic conditions, the initiative will also help them better utilize resources to help consumers and their families.

The project's principal investigator, Dr. E. Davis Martin, head of the Department of Special Education, Rehabilitation, Counseling/School Psychology and a Wayne T. Smith distinguished professor, said the grant will enable the College of Education to continue training highly motivated and capable professionals to improve the lives of youth and adults with disabilities through their work in non-profit community rehabilitation programs or with state and federal programs. To date, the department has received $3.375 million in U.S. Department of Education funding for its undergraduate, graduate, post-graduate and doctoral programs. In May, the Rehabilitation Counseling master's program received a $1 million grant from the Rehabilitation Services Administration, which will provide scholarships for 14 working rehabilitation counselors interested in obtaining their master's degrees through distance education.

"I think one of the unique things about the rehab counseling program is that we have an undergraduate grant, we have a master's on-campus grant, we have the distance education grant and then we have a post-master's grant for leadership and a doctoral grant,'' Martin said. "Most programs don't offer that.''

This most recent grant, which will be distributed over a five-year period, will provide for the education and training of graduate students who have not received professional experience in the field of rehabilitation counseling. The eight students in the vocational rehabilitation cohort will also interact with the 14 distance education students who will participate in classes offered in real time via streaming video.

"The distance ed students are taking the same courses the on-campus people are taking,'' Martin said. "The distance component is the same as the on-campus component and that really drives the quality up. The on-campus students have access to folks who are already working in the field and have experience. It enhances the education that they get. The interaction they have really complements their education. It also complements the education for the people who are in distance ed because these (on-campus) people are asking questions that they typically don't think about. I think the students really benefit.''

Martin said many students who earn their master's degrees in the program will eventually receive opportunities to apply their skills as supervisors, assistant commissioners or commissioners. Steve Shivers, commissioner of the Alabama Department of Rehabilitation Services, wrote in his letter of support for the grant proposal that on-campus students will greatly benefit from their contact with professional vocational rehabilitation counselors and distance education students.

"An essential feature of a successful [vocational rehabilitation] agency ... is an agency with a trained cadre of rehabilitation counselors who understand and appreciate the concepts of efficiency and effectiveness in the delivery of substantial services that are firmly based on the values of independence, productivity and inclusion,'' Shivers wrote. "... The development of the critical [vocational rehabilitation] practice issues paired with the academic courses throughout the master's program is especially appealing in dealing with real world issues confronting rehabilitation counselors.'' See additional coverage of the grant at http://tiny.cc/p29FA

Last Updated: May 16, 2011