Dear Readers:
I would like to thank all of our IARP editorial board members and contributors for their insightful manuscripts, reviews and recommendations for vocational rehabilitation practice shared in this edition of the Rehabilitation Professional. I would also like to meet with the presenters at the IARP’s 2026 Fall Forum and IALCP Symposium in New Orleans to discuss submitting their work for publication in our journal.
We appreciate the work of Michael Shahnasarian and Todd Wilber for their proposed model for analyzing and presenting opinions in Assessment of Loss of Earning Capacity Claims Involving Injury Cases. This article proposes an integrated, systematic, five-part framework for vocational rehabilitation experts’ discernment and presentation of their assessments and opinions on loss of earning capacity claims in injury cases.
The second article Rehabilitation Counseling outside of Workers’ Compensation by Alana Bomberger, Clinton Richmond, Sonia Masuga and Armando Morales-Rivera. This article examines the various roles to include forensic roles in which rehabilitation counselors are able to access outside of the Workers’ Compensation systems. Transitioning to a forensic setting requires integrating standardized methodology, adhering to standards of practice, applying clinical expertise, and accurately applying research-based data.
The third article Assessing Employer Willingness to Accommodate Individuals in Substance Use Recovery: A Study of Supportive Workplace Practices by Alicia Becton, Stephanie Lusk, Paige Vickers and Natalie Gibson is an empirical study (N=380) that examined employers’ willingness to provide workplace accommodations for individuals in recovery from substance use disorders and explored the extent to which personal and business-related characteristics predicted that willingness. The 16-item Willingness to Accommodate Scale (WAS), a new 5-point Likert-type scale developed for this study, was used to gauge employers’ willingness to accommodate.
The next article is Can a Short-term Summer Work Experience Improve Perceived Vocational Situation of Youth with Intellectual Disabilities? An Exploratory Study. This study by Carol Cox , Sarah Gillespie, and Rolena Stephenson assesses any change in vocational situation of students with intellectual disabilities before and after participating in a short-term, paid, work-based summer learning program using a pre-post-program survey My Vocational Situation Scale.
Our final article for the fall edition of the Rehabilitation Professional is an empirical study, Vocational Retraining Alignment and Its Impact on Injured Worker Motivation, Salary, and Well-Being. This study compared the levels of motivation, well-being, and salary of injured workers who participated in retraining into a career path that aligns with goals and interests compared to those who did not. To collect the data, surveys combining the SIMS scale, WHO-5, and other questions were utilized. The data was analyzed using MANOVA to determine the differences between the two alignment groups. Results indicate there are significant differences between the two alignment groups in well-being scores and salary, and three out of four types of motivation measured.
We hope you find this issue informative and useful for your professional practice. We have a new Editorial Board for the Rehabilitation Professional that was trained this summer. I look forward to serving IARP over the next two years and thank you for your ongoing support of our IARP journals.
Sincerely,
Scott Beveridge, Editor-in-Chief