Every day that we are off work following an injury is another day that our body, and our brain, can lose their conditioning for work.
The benefits of getting back to work early after injury, and taking a ‘rehabilitation on the job’ approach by far exceed the benefits of taking a “rehabilitation outside of the workplace” approach. In fact research consistently shows that recovering at work early is the best way to ensure that your rehabilitation is physically, psychologically and socially complete, especially when combined with other complementary rehabilitation such as physical exercise.
Proactive’s Vocational Rehabilitation Services aim to support our clients back to work early, while ensuring your safety and providing rehabilitation that maximises your recovery. We will work with you, your employer and other health professionals involved in your recovery to ensure we are implementing a comprehensive service that meets your needs.
By applying The Four Corners Approach to our Vocational Rehabilitation programmes, more than 90% of clients going through our service will make a return to work, with most reporting that this happened both earlier and safer than if they were to try to return without this support. Of more than 3000 clients that we have helped get back to work in the last 12 months, 98% were still productively engaged in their role 12 weeks after being discharged from the programme.
In engaging in our Vocational Rehab Programme, you can expect the following:
Your return to work programme will be delivered by an experienced occupational therapist, physiotherapist or occupational health nurse. Depending on the severity of your injury or the type of work that you do, you may have more than one health professional working with you to make sure that all aspects of your recovery are being addressed.
Your health practitioner will meet with you and your employer to gain a better understanding of your injury, the type of work that you do, and any special considerations that we need to take into account when planning your return to work. This will include an assessment of your worksite and the tasks that you need to undertake.
You may require a separate physiotherapy assessment to help us further understand your injury, your ability to do physical activity and what other rehabilitation may be helpful in returning you to work.
Once we have a good picture of your situation and your work, we will work with you, your employer, your GP or Specialist, and anyone else involved in your rehab to formulate a return to work plan. This will involve getting an understanding of, and planning around:
Proactive is one of 6 Suppliers of Vocational Rehabilitation Services to ACC, so if your time of work is due to an injury you may be able to access this service under ACC Funding. Otherwise, the service can be self-funded, funded by an insurer or in some cases help is provided by your employer.
We currently provide the following Vocational Rehabilitation Services:
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