Community Rehabilitation Aide

Learn about the Community Rehabilitation Aide Career...

Healthy citizens are the greatest assets any country can have.
~Winston Churchill

People with disabilities often have their own home or apartment, and like most people, they enjoy the pleasures of independent living.  However, when individuals with disabilities live independently, they may require personal assistance with the activities of daily life. To receive the appropriate support while also living independently, some disabled people choose to live in assisted living communities.  These communities provide specialized care services that address the medical and daily needs of people with disabilities. Community Rehabilitation Aides administer the care people with disabilities, living in said communities, need to be healthy and safe in their homes.

Community Rehabilitation Aides may provide care to many members of an assisted living community, or just one.  If a Community Rehabilitation Aide is assigned to work with a few different residents, they will usually spend their day traveling from one resident’s home, to another.  For example, an Aide may be responsible for helping ten or more residents with cooking, shopping, dressing, and bathing.  In this situation, the Aide would follow a schedule that establishes where and when, within the community, he or she will be working on each day.

Other residents may require constant care in order to live independently.  For instance, a resident who has advanced dementia, may need someone with him or her close to twenty-four hours per day.  In this case, the Community Rehabilitation Aide would devote all of his or her working hours to one patient.  He or she may help the resident with bathing, shopping, taking medication, transportation, and many other tasks associated with daily living.

In some cases, Community Rehabilitation Aides work with residents who are capable of going to school, working, and engaging in intellectually and socially satisfying activities. In these cases, Aides facilitate their client’s ability to partake in these activities by helping them to accomplish daily living chores.

Community Rehabilitation Aides must be patient and open-minded to work effectively with people with disabilities. However, above all, Community Rehabilitation Aides are willing to help their clients accomplish any task, no matter how big or small.  Many Aides enjoy their work because they have the opportunity to build friendships with their clients, and other Community Rehabilitation Aides working within the same communities.

Most employers require Community Rehabilitation Aides to have a high school diploma, while others may require a college degree, social work degree, or nursing degree.

Request information from schools offering Psychology and Counseling degree programs.