Disability disclosure is a complex and consequential decision-making process, shaped by personal and social factors such as stigma, visibility, and severity of one’s condition. Understanding how these factors influence disclosure behaviors is essential for developing supportive environments for individuals with disabilities. This study examined how disability severity, visibility, and anticipated stigma affect key dimensions of disclosure—motivations, emotional state, and anticipated outcomes. Participants ( N = 221) with chronic illnesses and disabilities completed an online survey. Analyses included chi-squared tests, logistic regressions, t-tests, and ANOVAs. Findings indicated that higher severity predicted greater visibility and anticipated stigma. Disclosure was more often driven by autonomy and social connection. Participants with more severe disabilities and those anticipating stigma reported more anxiety and regret, and less confidence and empowerment. These results highlight the importance of individualized support and stigma reduction strategies to foster more positive disclosure experiences and outcomes.
To explore the involvement of persons with disabilities in the community-based participatory research (CBPR) process, the authors conducted a systematic review of CBPR articles involving disability communities. Following PRISMA guidelines, 19 CBPR studies published between 2014 and 2024 met inclusion criteria. Study findings were analyzed in alignment with the core components of CBPR (e.g., formation of partnerships, assessing community strengths and dynamics, identifying priority concerns, designing and conducting intervention/policy research, feeding back and interpreting findings, disseminating and translating findings; Israel et al., 2012). Our systematic review found CBPR partnerships inclusive of academic researchers, community members, direct service providers, and community leaders. More than 65% of the studies identified direct service provision as a community priority. Across studies, disability community members were likely to be involved in four CBPR core components: (a) identification of community priorities, (b) designing and conducting research, (c) feeding back and interpreting data, and (d) translation of findings into products. The study findings also identify a need for academic researchers to ensure that disability community members are involved in identifying research questions, creating governance to share power and leadership throughout the CBPR process, recruiting community members, and disseminating findings. Given the importance of social justice and equity for persons with disabilities, through CBPR, academic researchers have the opportunity to empower individuals to engage in action to change policy, practice, and service delivery for the betterment of their communities.
Rehabilitation counseling is often a misunderstood profession. Advocacy for the profession and advocacy on behalf of clients and organizations are essential. This manuscript describes a lecture and assignment given to rehabilitation counseling students in a university course designed to address the lack of awareness about rehabilitation counseling. The lecture covered content related to the history and importance of advocacy in rehabilitation counseling. The students then created a public service announcement (PSA) that advertised rehabilitation counseling services to a specific population and shared their PSA in class with their fellow students.
Ableism is prevalent across community spaces, including disability services and rehabilitation counselor education programs. Rehabilitation counseling reflects historic and current social views on disability. Despite rehabilitation counseling’s focus on disability, advocacy, and social justice, counselors and educators are not exempt from perpetuating ableism, harming current students and future clients of their students. In many rehabilitation counseling programs, concepts like disability culture, identity, Disability Justice, academic ableism, and ability privilege remain underexplored. In this article, we examine opportunities and barriers to training anti-oppressive counselors and offer suggestions for supporting students in working towards anti-ableism in their counseling practice. Implications for pedagogy, supervision, leadership, and research are presented.
Linking Learning to Careers (LLC), a Rehabilitation Services Administration-funded demonstration project in Vermont, connected youth with disabilities to a set of services with a focus on work-based learning experiences in integrated environments. LLC’s design supported high school students in their transitions to employment or postsecondary education. This present study extends the timeframe of the initial evaluation (which observed participants up to the end of the demonstration) to up to five years after demonstration enrollment. LLC youth remained connected with HireAbility Vermont after the demonstration concluded and attained a higher employment rate at case closure. Among employed youth, LLC led to an increase in hourly wages while not impacting total weekly hours worked. LLC maintained positive impacts on two of the three postsecondary education outcomes examined. Additionally, LLC had no detectable impact on annual earnings. Program administrators and staff offering transition services to youth with disabilities could consider the continued success of the program—along with the evaluation considerations raised in this paper—to support offering a stronger set of services to youth and develop better evaluation strategies to understand the effects of their programs.
