Dr. Lisa Ottomanelli in partnership with individuals with SCI, researchers, and rehabilitation professionals, shares a collection of resources to help persons with SCI and their clinical teams to support employment after spinal cord injury. Work is a means of restoring purpose, social connections, health and independence for persons with SCI. Here you will find evidence-based resources for how to help patients return to work after a spinal cord injury, education and training on work and SCI, and real-life stories about the journey to employment after injury.

Dr. Ottomanelli is a Clinical Psychologist at the James A Haley Veterans’ Hospital and Associate Professor at the University of South Florida, Department of Neurology, Morsani College of Medicine. Her work and research areas cover spinal cord injury, vocational rehabilitation, and Veterans with Spinal Cord Injury.

Work provides many benefits to persons with SCI. Finding your way back to work is possible with the right support. Individual Placement and Support (IPS) (also called Supported Employment) provides the most effective method for helping individuals with SCI return to work.

Your team. Your mission. Complete Support. Supported Employment offers coordinated support to begin and maintain work.

Work is an on-ramp to freedom, connectivity, and happiness.

Reframing Disability. Returning to work after spinal cord injury can be hard but work isn’t called work for nothing.

Your employment journey continues after a spinal cord injury by adjusting, adapting and overcoming with the help of Supported Employment.

2 page introduction to Individual Placement and Support services and how it helps individuals with spinal cord injury find and keep the jobs they want.

Individual Placement and Support (IPS) or Supported Employment is an evidence-based practice to restore work, health, and well-being among persons with SCI. Whether you are a physical therapist, social worker, psychologist, vocational counselor, or any clinical provider treating an SCI patient, there is support to help your patient with employment. Here you find tools and resources developed with rigorous research methods to help SCI healthcare teams and vocational professionals learn about and apply IPS Supported Employment practices to improve the lives of persons with SCI.

SCI Toolkit

The Individual Placement and Support in SCI toolkit provides practical, real-world, evidence-based information on the best practices for addressing the vocational needs of person with SCI

Where it all started: The SCI-VIP study was the first study ever done of vocational rehabilitation in SCI. Hear an SCI patient and his healthcare providers talk about what participating in the first randomized clinical trial of supported employment was like.

Lisa Ottomanelli, PhD, clinical psychologist at the James A. Haley Veterans Hospital & Clinics in Tampa, Florida, delivered the 2023 NIDILRR Invited Lecture for Center for Rehabilitation Outcomes Research’s Rehabilitation Research and Training Center (RRTC) on Employment for Persons with Physical Disabilities on Sept. 11. Her presentation was on employment for veterans with spinal cord injury (SCI) and traumatic brain injury (TBI) and included findings from her own research to identify evidence-based approaches to increasing employment for veterans with SCI and TBI.

Lisa Ottomanelli, PhD, a prominent researcher in the field of spinal cord injury (SCI) and disabilities, was a featured speaker at the 2023 Kessler Foundation Baird Visiting Educational Professorship. In this podcast, she discussed the effectiveness of standardized evidence-based approaches that combine vocational rehabilitation with clinical care, highlighting their potential to enhance quality of life and foster competitive employment.

Content was developed through grant funding awarded to Dr. Ottomanelli at the James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital and the Tampa Research and Education Foundation from the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Craig H. Nelson Foundation. The content does not represent the views of the VA or the United States Government.

For more information on Dr. Ottomanelli, please visit her profile page. If you are a researcher, clinician or innovator of vocational interventions and would like to collaborate with Dr. Ottomanelli, please get in contact at lisa.ottomanelli@va.gov or Bldg. 2, Rm. 19-02, Mail Code 151, 13000 Bruce B. Downs Boulevard, Tampa, Florida 33612. Telephone at (813)503-8883.