Dr Nwagboso Ifeanyichukwu Isaac
Abstract
In recent years, the call for inclusive practices has extended beyond education and politics into the field of psychosocial rehabilitation. A growing concern in this area is the shortage of trained personnel, which affects the ability to reach individuals in need of psychosocial support, especially in developing communities. This review explores the potential impact of involving low literacy persons – individuals with limited formal education or reading skills – in psychosocial rehabilitation work. Low-literacy persons, when properly trained, can offer valuable assistance in community-based rehabilitation by acting as peer supporters, caregivers, and advocates. The global call for inclusion supports this approach as an innovative model for empowering disadvantaged groups while addressing workforce shortages in psychosocial services. This article critically discusses the benefits, challenges, and implications of such inclusion, highlighting it as a promising new strategy for sustainable rehabilitation. It adopts a qualitative, descriptive approach, analyzing existing scholarly works, institutional reports, and international policy documents related to inclusion, literacy, and psychosocial rehabilitation. The primary achieving aim was to understand how low-literacy persons can effectively participate in psychosocial rehabilitation work as a new strategy for more effective inclusion and capacity expansion.