Return to Work: Creating Momentum in the Work Restoration Process

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Return to Work Programs: The Next Generation

Monday, July 17, 2006

Faculty

Four Points by Sheraton Hyannis Resort, Hyannis, Cape Cod, Massachusetts

Schedule

Summary

This workshop is designed for occupational and employee health professionals, disability management specialists, work return coordinators, corporate benefit managers, state workers’ compensation officials, insurance industry professionals and others who wish to broaden their understanding of work restoration programs and advance their skills. Attendees should be familiar with the basic design of a work return program and want to refine its use in challenging situations.

How do you create momentum in the work restoration process when you are faced with challenges and barriers? What challenges to work restoration do you deal with on a regular basis? How do competing self-interests influence the work restoration process? What is the best work restoration approach for a company – or for a specific site? What strategies can be used to address resistance and lack of participation among employees, supervisors and community physicians? How do you respond to a psychiatric diagnosis? Are there special considerations for a company that has several sites and divisions, crossing multiple workers’ comp jurisdictions? What benchmarks and metrics are most useful in determining whether your company’s work restoration efforts are effective? How can a company’s approach be applied with people who experience a work disruption due to non-occupational illness or injury?

This is your opportunity to address these questions and increase your depth of understanding about what works (and what doesn’t!) when work restoration is the goal for the employee. The leaders’ expertise in both the occupational and non-occupational disability arenas provides the learner with a broad resource.

What Will You Accomplish By Attending?

At the completion of this seminar you will be able to:

• Describe employee factors that challenge successful work restoration;

• Describe employer and health care provider factors that challenge successful work restoration;

• Identify strategic information about the company, worksite and the system that is critical to a successful work restoration program;

• Discuss methods for resolving perennial work return challenges such as resistance, lack of motivation and disruption among employees, supervisors and community physicians;

• Design accommodation pathways that strengthen work restoration, and

• Apply successful work restoration principles and practices to non-occupational illness and injury by engaging the worker, insurance company personnel, physicians and other health care providers.

Distinguished Faculty

Drs. Steven and Norma Leclair, have been leaders in the design, implementation, evaluation and refinement of work return and industrial rehabilitation programs. They have more than 20 years experience providing clear, step-by-step leadership to employers and health care providers in the assessment of current practices, work flows and benefit structures and in the development and implementation of worksite systems to prevent and manage both occupational and non-occupational disability and promote effective work return. Selected clients have included: Mars, Inc., Honda of America, Delta Airlines, Merck, the Cleveland Clinic, the Canadian Institute, The US Army Health Services Command, UNUM/Provident, CIGNA, Aetna Life and CNA.

Steven W. Leclair, Ph.D., CRC has worked with hundreds of industrial firms, service organizations, retail outlets, health care facilities and public employers both nationally and internationally to develop strategies that support persons with disabilities in their efforts to maintain or restore the ability to work. He is a licensed psychologist and certified rehabilitation counselor with more than 25 years of professional experience as a consultant, clinician, educator, researcher and administrator. He is the author of more than 40 publications including books, articles and monographs related to disability and work restoration. Steve is the Executive Director and CEO of Community Partners, Inc.; a large non-profit organization in Maine that provides community-based supports to persons with disabilities.

Norma J. Leclair RN, Ph.D., LCPC has worked as a consultant to business and industry, insurance carriers, health care systems, public schools and government agencies. She is a leading expert on the relationship between complex medical issues, psychiatric impairment and work restoration for both occupational and non-occupational disability. She has spoken and published on a variety of health care topics including psychiatric impairment, delayed recovery, fibromyalgia, multiple sclerosis, HIV, and Hepatitis C. Norma was the consulting editor for psychiatric disorders for the 2001 edition of the Medical Disability Advisor by Presley Reed. Currently, she is the Director of Community Partners Education and Research Alliance, a non-profit research and professional development organization in Maine.

Tuition

Tuition is $395. Tuition includes a continental breakfast, lunch with faculty and a detailed workshop manual. Click here for registration information.

Continuing Education Information

Click here for Continuing Education Information.

Schedule

Monday, July 17, 2006