INTRODUCTION
As discussed by Ronald W. Manderscheid, Ph.D., and Marilyn J. Henderson in a recent From the Field column (see MHW, Oct. 8), the concept of evidence-based practice is developing rapidly. It needs to be emphasized, however, that mental health system planners' interest in incorporating evidence-based practices into their system planning efforts is occurring concurrently with the concept of recovery-oriented system planning. Unfortunately, from a recovery perspective, much of what is important to people's recovery has not been uncovered by current evidence-based practices. Like the "emperor who had no clothes", are we fooling ourselves as a field into thinking we have covered much of what is important?

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Arns, P., Rogers, E. S., Cook, J., Mowbray, C., & members of the IAPSRS research committee. (2001). The IAPSRS Toolkit: Development, utility, and relation to other performance measurement systems. Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal, 25, 43-52.

The current climate of economic constraint in community-based mental health services has all but required psychosocial rehabilitation (PSR) programs to demonstrate their effectiveness by adopting outcome assessment systems. Agencies of disparate size and varying degrees of sophistication are now responding to mandates to systematically monitor pro-gram outcomes. In doing so, however, PSR practitioners and administrators are faced with a bewildering array of competing measures, some of which are impractical, costly, or irrelevant for capturing the outcomes of PSR services (Blankertz & Cook, 1998). To acquaint readers with issues in performance measurement in PSR, this article describes a newly developed outcome measurement system created to document the achievements of service recipients in PSR programs and to monitor progress towards recovery. We discuss principles and logistical issues in performance measurement which are important to PSR agencies and which the Toolkit has been designed to address. Results of the pilot testing of the PSR Toolkit are presented to demonstrate the feasibility of its use, logistical problems in implementation, psychometric properties of the measures, and the Toolkit’s sensitivity to change. We discuss next steps in the development of the Toolkit.

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Farkas, M.D., Anthony, W.A. (2001). Overview of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Education: Concepts of Training and Skill Development. Rehabilitation Education, 15(2), 119-132.

Training in psychiatric rehabilitation, at both preservice and in-service levels, has not kept pace with the developing knowledge base in psychiatric rehabilitation. Currently, the psychiatric rehabilitation field has a clear mission and philosophy and a defined population in need of psychiatric rehabilitation services. Now it must develop in its workforce the specific competencies (knowledge, attitude, and skills) that can effectively deliver services to individuals with psychiatric disabilities. Educators must understand the empirical basis of the field, the practitioner tasks that are most apt to relate to improved client outcomes, and the various types of training programs that are possible.

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MacDonald-Wilson, K., Nemec, P. B., Anthony, W., & Cohen, M. (2001). Assessment in Psychiatric Rehabilitation. In B. Bolton (ed), Handbook of Measurement and Evaluation in Rehabilitation 3rd edition, Gaithersburg, MD: Aspen Publications.

INTRODUCTION
Psychiatric rehabilitation assessment is the first phase of the psychiatric rehabilitation process. The psychiatric rehabilitation process itself varies greatly in terms of its formality, specificity, and documentation. At its most generic level, the practice of psychiatric rehabilitation involves consumers figuring out the residential, vocational, educational, and/or social goals they want to achieve and developing the skills and supports they need to reach their goals. In some psychiatric rehabilitation programs, this process is helped to unfold in an indirect, less formal, and less documented manner (for example, clubhouses). In other psychiatric rehabilitation programs, this process is directly facilitated and documented by a practitioner (for example, programs using the psychiatric rehabilitation approach developed at Boston University). Even with differences in how the entire psychiatric rehabilitation process is structured in various rehabilitation settings, the psychiatric rehabilitation assessment process at a minimum should include information on consumers' goals and the skills and supports needed to reach those goals.

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Copyright permission granted from Aspen Publishers. This document has been re-created for distribution on the world-wide-web. Although the pagination may be slightly different from the original book chapter, the content is identical.

With the admission of people who experience psychiatric disabilities in the state-federal vocational rehabilitation system and the Social Security disability rolls in the 1960s, assessment of their capacity to work has been a major concern. Given the rising rates of claims for psychiatric disability in both the public and the private sectors, and the disappointing employment outcomes of people with psychiatric disabilities compared to those with other disabilities, there have been numerous initiatives to accurately assess their employment potential. Historically, such assessment within the Social Security Administration has relied upon evaluation of a person's medical impairment, but numerous studies suggest a weak relationship between measures of psychiatric diagnosis or symptoms and work outcome. Efforts have been undertaken to identify valid and reliable methods of assessing the ability of people with psychiatric disabilities to work The authors review (a) methods of assessing work function for this population, and (b) the literature on predictors of work functioning and the nature of psychiatric disability, and suggest implications for disability determination policies and for future research.

Key Words: psychiatric disability; work function; assessment

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INTRODUCTION
The collected articles for this special issue of Rehabilitation Education demonstrate the high level of sophistication and professionalism of psychiatric rehabilitation today and the enormous gap between psychiatric rehabilitation education and the needs of the field. Clearly, psychiatric rehabilitation is no longer in its infancy. However, in spite of dramatic gains in the last 25 years, the field remains a comparative youngster. The authors contributing to this special issue make an eloquent case for specialized education, training, and research and for the value of integrating psychiatric rehabilitation training into the field of rehabilitation counseling.

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Pita, D. D., Ellison, M. L., Farkas, M. & Bleecker, T. (2001). Exploring personal assistance services for people with psychiatric disabilities. Journal of Disability Policy Studies, 12(1), 2-9.

Copyright permission granted from Pro-ed Academic Publishers

Key Words: mental illness, readiness for change, transtheoretical model of change, psychometric properties

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People with psychiatric disabilities have been viewed historically as incapable of recovery. However, recent data suggest that many people do recover and go on to fulfilling and contributing lives in their communities. These new data have important implications for teaching students who will be working with people with psychiatric disabilities.