Research

Supported Employment

Many models have been proposed for assisting people with mental disorders to obtain meaningful employment. The New Hampshire-Dartmouth Psychiatric Research Center and Community Connections collaborated to examine the effectiveness of Individual Placement and Support (IPS) in comparison to an enhanced vocational rehabilitation approach for Community Connections consumers.

Individual Placement and Support was developed by our colleagues at the Psychiatric Research Center and has several unique emphases. First, it considers employment rehabilitation to be an integral component of mental health treatment rather than a separate service. Employment specialists thus become key members of mental health services teams. Second, IPS prioritizes competitive employment in regular work settings and follows a "place-train" model, engaging consumers as rapidly as possible in finding and keeping jobs. Finally, employment specialists in IPS offer follow-along support as necessary, tailoring needed training to specific job situations.

In D.C., we compared the impact of IPS to a strengthened version of vocational rehabilitation. Results demonstrated the superiority of IPS in a number of outcome domains.

For more information about this study, please contact Richard R. Bebout, Ph.D., Project Director, at 202-281-2915 or at rbebout@ccdc1.org.