Sickness Disability And Work Breaking The Barriers Canada Opportunities For Collaboration

Sickness and disability policy reform has been a priority for OECD countries wanting to improve employment and social outcomes in this domain. The recent recession and corresponding fall in labour demand is expected to hit marginalised workers ...

Too many workers leave the labour market permanently due to health problems or disability, and too few people with reduced work capacity manage to remain in employment. This is a social and economic tragedy common to virtually all OECD countries. It ...

This comprehensive interdisciplinary synthesis focuses on the clinical and occupational intervention processes enabling workers to return to their jobs and sustain employment after injury or serious illness as well as ideas for improving the wide range of outcomes of entry and re-entry into the workplace. Information is accessible along key theoretical, research, and interventive lines, emphasizing a palette of evidence-informed approaches to return to work and stay at work planning and implementation, in the context of disability prevention. Condition-specific chapters detail best return to work and stay at work practices across diverse medical and psychological diagnoses, from musculoskeletal disorders to cancer, from TBI to PTSD. The resulting collection bridges the gap between research evidence and practice and gives readers necessary information from a range of critical perspectives. Among the featured topics: Understanding motivation to return to work: economy of gains and losses. Overcoming barriers to return to work: behavioral and cultural change. Program evaluation in return to work: an integrative framework. Working with stakeholders in return to work processes. Return to work after major limb loss. Improving work outcomes among cancer survivors. Return to work among women with fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome. The Handbook of Return to Work is an invaluable, unique and comprehensive resource for health, rehabilitation, clinical, counselling and industrial psychologists, rehabilitation specialists, occupational and physical therapists, family and primary care physicians, psychiatrists and physical medicine and rehabilitation as well as occupational medicine specialists, case and disability managers and human resource professionals. Academics and researchers across these fields will also find expert guidance and direction in these pages. It is an essential reading for all return to work and stay at work stakeholders.

This report aims to identify the knowledge gaps and begin to narrow them by reviewing evidence on the main challenges and barriers to better integrating people with mental illness in the world of work.

One in seven working-age adults identifies as having a disability in OECD countries, a share that is also substantial and growing among young people (8% in 2019). Many of them are excluded from meaningful work and have low levels of income and social engagement.

Every developed country has a public employment service that connects job seekers with employers through information, placement, and training support services. In Federalism in Action, Donna E. Wood assesses how Canada’s public employment service is performing after responsibility was transferred from the federal government to provinces, territories, and Aboriginal organizations between 1995 and 2015. Drawing upon over twenty years of data, Wood reveals the governance choices provinces made, the reasons behind these choices, and the outcomes they achieved. Provincial decisions regarding employment programming is an important public policy issue about which little is known, and even less understood within the context of Aboriginal communities. Federalism in Action includes analytical comparisons of Canada’s employment programming with the United States, Australia, and the European Union, as well as information from insightful interviews with key informants from every province. In firmly placing Canada within the extensive international literature on the governance of welfare-to-work policies, this book makes an important new contribution to research.

This is the first book to challenge the idea that paid work should be seen as an essential means to independence and self-determination for the disabled. Writing in the wake of attempts in many countries to increase the employment rates of disabled people, the contributors show how such efforts have led to an overall erosion of financial support for the disabled and increasing stigmatization of those who are not able to work. Drawing on sociology and philosophy, and mounting a powerful case for the rights of the disabled, the book will be essential for activists, scholars, and policy makers.

Including people with disabilities fully into Canadian society, with the rights enjoyed by non-disabled people, requires a fundamental social transformation, not simply “fixing” some bodies. It requires deep changes in the attitudes, cultural images and policies that make people with disabilities invisible, set them aside, undermine or reject their contributions and value, and justifies their neglect, abuse and death. This shift involves the simple recognition and honouring of the dignity, autonomy and rights of all people, including those who experience disabilities. In the second edition of About Canada: Disability Rights, Deborah Stienstra explores the historical and current experiences of people with disabilities in Canada, as well as the policy and advocacy responses to these experiences. Stienstra demonstrates that disability rights enable people with disabilities to make decisions about their lives and future, claim rights on their own behalf, and participate actively in all areas of Canadian society. Disability rights can and does increase access to and inclusion in critical areas like education, employment, transportation, telecommunications and health care. Additionally, Stienstra identifies new approaches and practices, such as universal design, disability supports and income supports, that can transform Canadian society to be more inclusive and accommodating for everyone.