For many non-traditional candidates, the path into teaching is riddled with bumps and detours. They must pay for increasingly expensive coursework and certification costs, attend classes that conflict with work schedules, and forgo wages to complete unfunded student teaching requirements. These roadblocks can deter valuable local…

Many more people are in need of rehabilitation, social services, and education than there are professionals available to provide help. This gap in service has led to the exploration and utilization of nonprofessionals to fill these roles. Many of these nonprofessionals are peers of the needy people. This adds the advantage of "peer relationships"…

A paraprofessional training program designed to provide community controlled mental health services to the Woodlawn community of Chicago, Illinois, is described in this monograph. The neighborhood and The Woodlawn Organization (T.W.O.A), a self help project formed in early 1960, are described from an historical perspective. Some of the areas…

The article describes postsecondary education programs in the Province of Alberta, Canada, for training individuals to work in paraprofessional and professional positions in community services for disabled children, adults, and their families. A career ladder in Rehabilitation Education provides advancement through study at the bachelor's,…

The report addresses the need for retraining direct service personnel in community based programs as a result of deinstitutionalization. The state of the art regarding state practices in job descriptions and classifications for paraprofessionals indicated the existence of few systematic attempts to retrain current instituional staff. Few examples…

This report describes the activities and outcomes of a pioneering Telehealth project in which clinical psychologists use state of the art satellite technology to consult with paraprofessionals who live and provide treatment settings to persons with the dual diagnosis of developmental disabilities and mental illnesses. The goal is to provide early…

This volume contains ten concurrent session papers from the 59th annual meeting of the American Home Economics Association. They deal with a number of topics including: the family life education center in Toledo, Ohio; the advantages and potentials of new media as educational supplements; the contributions of the home economist as a member of a…

This report describes an outreach program that provides service coordination and home-based early intervention for disabled infants and toddlers on the Navajo and Hopi reservations in Arizona. Developed by the Institute for Human Development (IHD), the outreach program uses paraprofessional instructional aides that are based in six northern…

The manual addresses the design and implementation of personnel practices for improving the preparation and performance of paraprofessionals who work with developmentally disabled persons in community-based settings. The first part of the manual describes components of a comprehensive system of career development (entry level positions, career…

The role of voluntary workers in the social services is the focus of this book. Following the introduction (Chapter 1), the remaining nine chapters discuss the following topics: The Background to Voluntary Work Today; The Volunteer; Volunteers as Others See Them; What Voluntary Workers Do; Organization of the Work of Volunteers; Recruitment and…

This guide provides information and guidelines to community college personnel who are administering and coordinating programs designed to prepare paraprofessionals to work with individuals with developmental disabilities in community settings. The guide is specifically for individuals managing the "Paraprofessional Curriculum for Community…

The Adult Armchair Education project (AAE) of the Opportunities Industrialization Center (OIC) in Philadelphia undertook instruction and skill development among the disadvantaged through learning groups in homes. Indigenous paid staff conducted direct, door-to-door recruitment. Classes, meeting once a week, 2 1/2 hours per session, for 10 weeks,…

Four interdisciplinary programs for the developmentally disabled are described: (1) a paraprofessional degree training program; (2) supported employment for institutionalized adults; (3) a service/research program in the area of communication technology and training for nonspeaking persons; and (4) a communication skills program for persons who…

This article describes how the Visiting Moms Program in Chelsea, Massachusetts, has taken the paraprofessional model one step further to respond to the needs of refugee and immigrant new mothers, by employing paraprofessional home visitors who are also immigrants or refugees themselves from countries in Central America, South America, and…

The document, in both English and French, describes a 2-year project in Guyana based on the principle of community-based rehabilitation (CBR), which stresses training local community residents as supervisors to provide training of rehabilitation workers and direct services to children with disabilities living in rural areas. The program provided…