A community college, especially in the California Community College system, is an ideal setting for an educationally based rehabilitation program like the Center provides. In California, the funding and structure of the statewide Disabled Student Programs and Services, is available to community college students with a certified disability. In other states and in other forms of higher educational institutions, similar mechanisms for students with disabilities are available, and can be explored by those interested in replicating our model.

There are many reasons why a higher education setting is an ideal one for addressing current long-term rehabilitation challenges. Some of these are as follows:

Long-term rehabilitation is primarily an educational challenge. Living with the after effects of stroke or with a chronic degenerative disease requires re-learning of previously mastered tasks and activities of daily living. The challenge is to learn adaptations for activities that can no longer be carried out as they were prior to the acquired disability. The task of someone with an acquired disability is to re-create a new lifestyle and set of skills that will lead to a fulfilling quality of life. This is not a task that can be accomplished without education and an environment that supports the learning process. In addition, in a community college setting, both the student who is learning an adaptive lifestyle and the student who has chosen a health care career can teach each other.

Virtually all California Community Colleges provide education in one or more allied health careers. Having a Center with “student-clients” taught by college instructors who are both medically licensed and educationally credentialed allied health specialists provides an ideal real-time living laboratory for clinical instruction.

There is a great strength in the relationship between the Center and Cabrillo College’s health-related occupational and health professional transfer programs. Cabrillo currently offers certificates or associate degrees in Nursing, Radiological Technology, Medical Assisting/Transcription, Dental Hygiene, and Human Services. Within these programs, education is available for registered nurses, radiological technologists, medical assistants, medical transcriptionists, and dental hygienists, and a variety of other occupations.

Every semester a different class of Cabrillo nursing students complete their rotation in rehabilitation at the Center. The rotation involves the entire Stroke Center Staff and students. Other colleges in the community college system have a different variety of allied health occupational programs including PT and Speech Aide certification.

In terms of transfer education, the Center serves as an education facility for students pursuing careers in allied health fields at several nearby colleges and universities. Speech therapy, occupational therapy and physical therapy students from San Jose State University and the UC System (coming from as far away as San Francisco) currently obtain clinical experience at the Center. Medical anthropology students, psychology and sociology majors from UC Santa Cruz intern at the Center on a regular basis.

Clinical experience and education has always been an essential part of health occupation education and is critical to long term occupational success. The Center has a long history of encouraging instructional assistants and volunteers to use the Center as a trial experience helping them to get a real-life taste of the work world that they will be entering as health care professionals and para-professionals.

It is also a popular choice for those seeking volunteer hours required for application to certain allied health professional programs. One rehabilitation-specialist physician and numerous speech therapists, occupational therapists, physical therapists, nurses, activity directors, and nurses aides count their work at Cabrillo College Stroke and Acquired Disability Center as pivotal in their successful career choice and/or as a significant source of their occupational preparation.

Many highly-schooled health care professionals discover, after years of preparation, that they are not psychologically or physically suited to the day-in and day-out rigors of their job. Spending a significant amount of time in the day to day reality of the allied health professional and establishing close ties with disabled adults, who are working hard to achieve what may seem to some as painfully incremental goals, is a critical part of a successful education of a health care professional.

At the same time, the health care industry's drive to contain costs while retaining the quality of care is causing the redefinition of existing jobs and the creation of new occupations. In response, community colleges’ health related programs are realigning and restructuring their programs to meet the growing need for multi-skilled, cross-trained health care practitioners.