The field of psychosocial rehabilitation has been developing over the past 30 years. In the beginning it was „just” an answer to deinstitutionalization, in order to assist patients from psychiatric hospitals to move to the community, and to support them in the community. For a long time, the focus was on the disabilities of persons with a psychiatric disorder.
Professionals were still pretty much aimed at problem solving or offering help to compensate for the disability. But more and more the rehabilitation movement became influenced by the user movement, shifting clients from the patient role to the role of a participatory consumer. Rehabilitation broadened its perspective from a disability focus to a strength focus, developing technology to assist clients to obtain a better quality of life in environments of their choice, helping to develop skills and to create resources.
In the last decade the rehabilitation movement is changing again. The experiences of persons telling about their recovery process are moving rehabilitation more and more to a recovery orientation. Studies indicate which factors can support clients in their recovery process. On the basis of this knowledge rehabilitation professionals can improve their services and programmes.
Wilken and den Hollander describe psychosocial rehabilitation as
the process in which supportive and empowering activities are undertaken to help persons with psycho-social disabilities optimize their quality of life and self-reliance, so that they can function in various freely chosen settings (living, work, other) in a manner that is both personally and socially satisfactory.
In the latest developments (2009 – 2010) the adjusted the CARe methodology, being inspired by the Strengths Model of Charlie Rapp (Kansas, USA). The changes made the CARe approach easier to use, working in all situations and with all clients with a Personal Profile, which is a Strengths Assessment.
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