Eighteen years' experience with a community-based vocational rehabilitation programme

Eighteen years' experience in the development of an innovative community-based regional vocational rehabilitation service has been described. The programme continues to develop with the recent introduction of a vocational consulting service offering employee assistive programmes to local employers, and with funding from the Solicitor General's Department to provide vocational assessment and retraining to women in conflict with the law. The success of this programme is due to the co-operative melding of the contributions of the university, the regional rehabilitation centre and broadly based community participation by employers and a variety of agencies.