Being informed.

While we may work with a consumer to help them obtain employment or become more independent, our ability to produce a successful outcome is impacted by many things going on their life and in society. We believe that an effective rehabilitation practitioner should have knowledge in a variety of areas. Successful outcomes are impacted by family, governmental programs, health insurance options, new medical developments, and unemployment rates, to name just a few areas. There are many avenues to developing knowledge and understanding about these topics. One could read professional journals and web sites or talk to knowledgeable colleagues. One important source of information is high quality newspapers.

For example, the following stories have appeared in the New York Times over the past few years ...

Arthritis Drug Approved for Expanded Use (May, 2006) Federal regulators on Friday approved wider use of Johnson & Johnson's drug Remicade but also said that a new warning was being added about reports of an often-fatal lymphoma in a small number of users.

Study Points to a Solution for Dread: Distraction (May 2006) The first study ever to look at where sensations of dread arise in the brain finds that contrary to what is widely believed, dread does not involve fear and anxiety in the moment of an unpleasant event. Instead, it derives from the attention that people devote beforehand to what they think will be extremely unpleasant. So the solution to dread, the researchers say, is self-distraction.

The Problem With an Almost-Perfect Genetic World (November 2005) Heralded in the Nov. 10 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, the new prenatal test provides earlier, more reliable results for all women than the current test, which is routinely offered to only older women who are at higher risk. But for people with Down syndrome and the cluster of other conditions subject to prenatal screening, the new test comes with a certain chill.

Battling Insurers Over Autism Treatment (December 2004) It took Beverly Chase 14 months of fighting with her health plan, Cigna Behavioral Health, to get payment for autism treatments for her 4-year-old son, Jake. This, despite considerable leverage on her side: a state law in Indiana, where she lives, requires insurers to pay for the behavioral therapies that parents say can produce striking improvement in autistic children.

Beyond 'I'm a Diabetic,' Little Common Ground (May, 2006) As volunteers for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, they collect far more money per patient for Type 1 diabetics than older and larger organizations that fight diseases with many, many more cases. Their chief advocates are parents of children with Type 1, a group that includes skilled, upper-income professionals devoted to finding a long-sought cure, which many think is approaching. People with Type 2, on the other hand, are far more likely to be old and poor, overweight and not white, although this disease also stems, in part, from genetic factors. The risk increases with age. Because their disease is associated with eating and inactivity, they routinely encounter less sympathy. Often they are stigmatized as undisciplined.

How About Not 'Curing' Us, Some Autistics Are Pleading (December 2004) Jack Thomas, a 10th grader at a school for autistic teenagers and an expert on the nation's roadways, tore himself away from his satellite map one recent recess period to critique a television program about the search for a cure for autism. "We don't have a disease," said Jack, echoing the opinion of the other 15 boys at the experimental Aspie school here in the Catskills. "So we can't be 'cured.' This is just the way we are."

America's 'Near Poor' Are Increasingly at Economic Risk, Experts Say (May 2006) The Abbotts date their tailspin to a collapse in demand for the aviation-related electronic parts that Stephen sold in better times, when he earned about $40,000 a year. He lost his job in late 2001 and his unemployment benefits ran out over the next year.

Next Big Health Debate: How to Help Uninsured (August 2002) Concerned that millions of workers are losing their health insurance coverage at a time when health costs are surging, employers and Congressional leaders say the next great health care debate will be over how to help the uninsured.

Some of these articles inform us about how individuals with disabilities view the world, some report about issues related to health insurers, and others provide information about unemployment rates. Each of these articles has implications for how we serve consumers. For example, our success in finding jobs for consumers is affected by unemployment rates. Our understanding of autism is affected by hearing the voices of individuals with autism. We gain employer perspectives about diabetes by reading about societal attitudes about Type 2 diabetes. This leads us to conclude that it is important that rehabilitation practitioners take time to learn about the consumer's world through regularly reading high quality newspapers such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times or other local newspapers.