Search results

Significant unemployment among adults with serious mental illness (SMI) is a well-documented problem. Estimates suggest that as many as 85% of adults with SMI are unemployed at any one time (Anthony & Blanch, 1987; Milazzo-Sayre, Henderson & Manderscheid, 1997; Rogers, Walsh, Masotta & Danley, 1991). Recent years have seen advances in the development and dissemination of a variety of supported employment services for adults with disabilities. When people with SMI are enrolled in services with a specific employment focus, they achieve employment outcomes (e.g. job placement rates, job tenure) superior to those achieved by people receiving standard mental health services such as day treatment (Bond et al., 2001; Cook, 2003). Supported employment is now considered an “evidenced-based” practice (Bond et al., 2001). Although supported employment approaches vary, evidence-based services share common principles, including (1) prioritizing client preferences for type and timing of work; (2) providing in-vivo and follow-along supports as long as needed; (3) viewing work attempts as part of a learning opportunity; (4) having a commitment to “competitive” employment as an attainable goal; and (5) not relying on pre-vocational training, day treatment or sheltered workshops (Bond et al., 2001; Mowbray, Leff, Warren, McCrohan et al., 1997; Ridgeway & Rapp, 1998).

This paper is a discussion of how an organisation providing community support developed its employment strategy to focus on gainful employment, valued employment roles, citizenship and human rights, from a traditional model with support/activity workers and sheltered employment, to social firms, employment development and supported employment at differing levels.

This paper seeks to examine whether paid employment produces positive social capital returns for people with severe and enduring mental health needs.

A sample of 96 users of mental health services in Sussex, who had been supported to return to work, completed a questionnaire rating their level of agreement with statements about their quality of life both before and after they started working. In addition, three supplementary individual case studies were made.

Analysis showed significant increases in reported quality of life following employment. The post‐employment positivity of responses was found across most areas of well‐being. Significant but varying gains were found in the majority of individuals who reported improvement in the following areas; social life; independence; resilience; confidence and self‐esteem; optimism; satisfaction; general happiness and ability to manage mental health. A third of individuals reported improvements in personal relationships and physical health. Qualitative data indicated that increased confidence was perceived by participants as the most important factor. Increased benefits were also found to be associated with individuals who had worked for a longer period, worked longer hours and were supported on a contract with high fidelity to the IPS model.

The paper relies on a self‐report method requiring respondents to reflect on how they felt pre and post gaining employment. This follows a rather subjective methodology. There were a number of individuals who had only worked for one month or less in the past year. These are unlikely to have experienced social capital returns or in fact any real impact at all as a result of working and likely distorted the results to some extent.

There have been limited research studies that have examined the additional social capital returns for people with enduring mental ill health who return to work.

This article summarises work done under Valuing People Now to improve employment prospects and outcomes for people with learning disabilities in England. It summarises the barriers to improvements and explains how understanding these barriers has helped to unlock solutions and new approaches.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the predictive validity of two measures of fidelity to the individual placement and support (IPS) approach to supported employment.

A systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted of IPS programs. In total, 30 studies provided information characterizing 69 cohorts and 8,392 participants. Predictive validity was assessed by a precision and negative prediction analysis and by multivariate analysis of deviance.

Fidelity scores on the IPS-15 scale of 60 or less accurately predicted poor outcomes, defined as 43 percent or less of participants commencing employment, in 100 percent of cohorts. Among cohorts with IPS-15 fidelity scores of 61-75, 63 percent attained good employment outcomes defined as 44 percent or more commencing employment. A similar pattern emerged from the precision analysis of the smaller sample of IPS-25 cohorts. Multivariate analysis of deviance for studies using the IPS-15 scale examined six cohort characteristics. Following adjustment for fidelity score, only fidelity score (χ²=15.31, df=1, p<0.001) and author group (χ²=35.01, df=17, p=0.01) representing an aspect of cohort heterogeneity, remained associated with commencing employment.

This study provides evidence of moderate, yet important, predictive validity of the IPS-15 scale across diverse international and research contexts. The smaller sample of IPS-25 studies limited the analysis that could be conducted.

Program implementation leaders are encouraged to first focus on attaining good fidelity, then supplement fidelity monitoring with tracking the percentage of new clients who obtain a competitive job employment over a pre-defined period of time.

The evidence indicates that good fidelity may be necessary but not sufficient for good competitive employment outcomes.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the economic benefits of Individual Placement with Support programmes commissioned by NHS North in the North West and Yorkshire and Humber regions.

A literature review was conducted and data collected from supported employment programmes in four localities. An econometric analysis was performed to evaluate likely savings for local commissioners and return on investment for the Treasury.

Integration of employment support within mental health services is central to success. Econometric analysis showed that local commissioners could save £1,400 per additional job outcome by commissioning evidence-based interventions and there is a positive return on investment to the Treasury for every £1 spent there is a return to the Treasury of £1.04.

This paper demonstrates the economic and social value of evidence-based supported employment for people with severe mental illness. The economic data generated could be helpful in encouraging investment in effective employment support in other areas. The work, views and perspectives contained in this paper are those of the authors. It does not necessarily reflect the views of the organisations for whom the authors work.

Barriers to employment are a significant issue in the United States and abroad. As civil rights legislation continues to be enforced and as employers seek to diversify their workplaces, it is incumbent upon the management field to offer insights that address obstacles to work. Although barriers to employment have been addressed in various fields such as psychology and economics, management scholars have addressed this issue in a piecemeal fashion. As such, our review will offer a comprehensive, integrative model of barriers to employment that addresses both individual and organizational perspectives. We will also address societal-level concerns involving these barriers. An integrative perspective is necessary for research to progress in this area because many individuals with barriers to employment face multiple challenges that prevent them from obtaining and maintaining full employment. While the additive, or possibly multiplicative, effect of employment barriers have been acknowledged in related fields like rehabilitation counseling and vocational psychology, the Human Resource Management (HRM) literature has virtually ignored this issue. We discuss suggestions for the reduction or elimination of barriers to employment. We also provide an integrative model of employment barriers that addresses the mutable (amenable to change) nature of some barriers, while acknowledging the less mutable nature of others.

The paper alerts small business employers to new dictates of the Disability Discrimination Act (2005) as it applies to learning disabilities. Then the “Learning to Work” project featured in the paper offers small business employers a set of approaches and methods for the identification of a learning‐disabled young adult candidate's training needs.

Interviews were carried out with 12 of the 52 companies in which the Breakaway‐supported employment service, operating from the Southdown Housing Association, has so far secured employment for people with learning disabilities.

Comments from employers in the survey represented predominantly very favourable experiences with the learning‐disabled individuals, mixed with some reservations about their need for additional training time, and their relative inflexibility in response to change of work routines.

The investigation was confined to SMEs in Sussex. As they stand, the methods could be used in different business sectors, but further research is planned on elicitation of candidates' personal constructs, resource modelling, and continuous training cycles.

Recognised supported employment models were used but significantly adapted. Some methods used in the paper were new.