BOEHM: Living Well / Working Well with a Disability (Sales & Service)
| MT-University of Montana Rural Institute, UCEDD | |||
| Program Type | UCEDD | Fiscal Year | 2020 |
| Contact | Tracy Boehm Barrett | ||
| [email protected] | |||
| Phone | 406-243-5741 | ||
| Project Description | |||
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Living Well is ten week wellness workshop for people with disabilities that helps participants achieve full participation through health maintenance and health promotion activities. When appropriate, individuals are encouraged to consider health behavior as one tool for increasing participation. Individually chosen goals are the centerpiece for building skills in healthy reactions and communication, managing depressed mood, seeking information, physical activity, nutrition, advocacy, and maintenance of healthy living habits. Participants report improvements in outlook and positive changes in daily activities, such as new employment, returning to school, or more active social lives. Many participants report the session on systems advocacy as their first exposure to disability rights advocacy. Individuals who participated in Living Well also report less limitation due to secondary health conditions and reduced health care costs. Working well with a Disability represents a line of research that translates our work in health promotion to the vocational arena. Access to health-promotion programs is limited for many people with disabilities due to employment, financial, and insurance barriers. The most prevalent secondary conditions reported by VR consumers with physical disabilities include fatigue, physical conditioning problems, sleep problems, chronic pain, depression, eating or weight problems, and anxiety. Many of these conditions are associated with worse employment outcomes for the general population and people with disabilities. Fortunately, health promotion programs can reduce limitation from secondary conditions and may reduce work-related health issues such as employee absenteeism and health care utilization. |
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