Program Overview

Bachelor of Community Rehabilitation

The Bachelor of Community Rehabilitation program at the University of Calgary is designed to provide students with a comprehensive understanding of community rehabilitation principles and practices.

Program Description

The program is grounded in multiple theoretical traditions and incorporates course study from numerous disciplines and faculties. Students participate in all realms of human services, including community support services, children's services, vocational rehabilitation, rehabilitation management, inclusive education, and health professions.

Underlying Principles

The underlying principles of the program include:

• Interdisciplinarity: The program is grounded in multiple theoretical traditions and incorporates course study from numerous disciplines and faculties.
  • Diversity in student backgrounds and outcomes
• Collaboration: Partnerships between people with disabilities and chronic health concerns, employers/field sites, researchers, and the CRDS program.
  • Senior students in CORE 594 and 595 tutor and mentor students in CORE 205 and 207 in their practicum placements with community human service organizations.
• Consumer-Based: The educational platform is determined by individuals with disabling conditions and chronic health concerns, advocates, and families.
  • Instructional delivery formats and locations as well as practical issues informed by student input and prior learning/career experience.
• Diversity across the life-span and across disabilities: Focus on the social construction of disability and chronic illness resulting in an array of research initiatives and practice issues.
  • Students gain experience with individuals of all ages and with a wide range of disabling conditions and chronic health concerns.
• Effecting social change: The program seeks to "problematize" society rather than the individual, exploring means of breaking down barriers that limit people from full participation in their community and in society in general.
  • Reflective practice and critical thinking encourage learners to pose questions and relate theory to practice, moving learners beyond basic skill 'technologies' in human service work to a broader context of reflective inquiry with research rigour and applied understanding of complex societal issues.

Practicum

The CRDS Program provides a unique Peer Mentoring program for senior-level students. Selected students are given the opportunity to step into the role of a "Curricular Peer Mentor” and “Practicum Supervisor".

Practicum Partnerships

The program includes partnerships between people with disabilities and chronic health concerns, employers/field sites, researchers, and the CRDS program. One of the most exciting partnerships is those in which senior students in CORE 594 and 595 tutor and mentor students in CORE 205 and 207 in their practicum placements with community human service organizations.

University Context

The University of Calgary is situated on land Northwest of where the Bow River meets the Elbow River, a site traditionally known as Moh’kins’tsis to the Blackfoot, Wîchîspa to the Stoney Nakoda, and Guts’ists’i to the Tsuut’ina. The university acknowledges and pays tribute to the traditional territories of the peoples of Treaty 7, which include the Blackfoot Confederacy, the Tsuut’ina First Nation, and the Stoney Nakoda. The city of Calgary is also home to the Métis Nation within Alberta. On this land and in this place, the university strives to learn together, walk together, and grow together “in a good way”.