Social work's contribution to psychosocial rehabilitation

Abstract

This article describes the social work profession's contribution to the emerging field of psychosocial rehabilitation and presents principles that enable social workers to work effectively with people with chronic mental illnesses. Although model psychosocial rehabilitation programs have been established throughout the United States, psychosocial rehabilitation has not been widely articulated in the social work literature. This article specifically defines the psychosocial rehabilitation approach in the model programs, often called "clubhouses," and describes the contribution of social work to the model's development.