The mission of the University of Kentucky Rehabilitation Counseling Program is to promote professional excellence through personal development and the highest academic standards as we work with our students, persons with disabilities, and our state and community partners in rehabilitation counseling to achieve equal rights, social justice, and quality of life for persons with disabilities in our community, in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, nationally, and globally.

Program Objectives

The University of Kentucky Rehabilitation Counseling Program prepares professional rehabilitation counselors with the skills and competencies needed to serve with excellence and distinction. The following are the program objectives.

Pre-Service Education - Students

To prepare masters and doctoral level rehabilitation counselors in the skills, knowledge, and competencies necessary to work with individuals who have a disability, with an emphasis on cultural diversity, individuals with a severe disability, and serving persons with disabilities and from minority backgrounds.

To recruit high quality students, especially nontraditional students from culturally diverse backgrounds, underrepresented groups, and students with disabilities. 

Pre-Service Education - Program

To provide the highest level of graduate rehabilitation counseling education through our Council on Rehabilitation Education (CORE) accredited program of courses and field training to prepare students to become professional rehabilitation counselors, able to assist persons with physical, mental, developmental, cognitive, and emotional disabilities to achieve their personal, career, and independent living goals through the application of the rehabilitation counseling process. 

To develop our students’ skills in promoting communication, goal setting, and beneficial growth or change through self-advocacy, psychological, vocational, social, and behavioral interventions. 

To develop our students’ skills in assessment and appraisal; diagnosis and treatment planning; career counseling; individual and group counseling treatment interventions focused on facilitating adjustments to the medical and psychosocial impact of disability; case management, referral, and service coordination; program evaluation and research; interventions to remove environmental, employment, and attitudinal barriers; consultation services among multiple parties and regulatory systems; job analysis, job development, and placement services, including assistance with employment and job accommodations; and the provision of consultation about and access to rehabilitation technology.

To prepare counselors to work as advocates, well-versed in the ethical codes and laws relevant to practice as a professional rehabilitation counselor, and in particular, with the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended. 

Rehabilitation Research

To conduct rehabilitation research aimed at improving the quality of life and enhancing the opportunities of persons with disabilities and to incorporate research results into the UK-GPRC training program.

To be a national leader in the scope and quality of our rehabilitation research, and to provide opportunities for our students to participate in research that improves the quality of life and enhances the opportunities of persons with disabilities, and that shapes the rehabilitation counseling profession.

Program Quality

To maintain our status as one of the longest established and highest quality Rehabilitation Counseling Programs in the nation. To be leaders in our profession.

To strive for continued growth and excellence through program assessment and development.

Through partnership and cooperative relationships with our two state rehabilitation agencies, rehabilitation organizations and facilities in Lexington, Kentucky, and around the world, businesses and industries, schools and school systems, and departments and colleges within the University of Kentucky, we will continue to develop interdisciplinary training opportunities with related disciplines.

To maintain program accreditation by the Council on Rehabilitation Education (CORE); for faculty to maintain CRC status; and to maintain program membership in the National Council on Rehabilitation Education (NCRE).