Important Findings Related to Integrated Services

People who receive well-integrated and coordinated vocational and clinical services have much better employment outcomes than those who receive non-integrated services.

Integrated employment services result in positive employment outcomes regardless of consumers’ personal characteristics, health problems, diagnoses, symptom levels, work histories, and functioning levels.

People need to receive more vocational services to complement the levels of clinical services they are offered.

Transcript

In order to achieve positive outcomes, people need to receive well-integrated and coordinated vocational and clinical services. It’s very important that providers communicate with each other, work together on the same teams, and, of course, work closely with service consumers to coordinate clinical and vocational care. Consumers shouldn’t be going to one place to receive clinical case management services and another to receive employment services, if this can be avoided.

Integrated employment services result in positive employment outcomes regardless of consumers’ personal characteristics, health problems, diagnoses, symptom levels, work histories, and functioning levels. If we use the correct approaches, regardless of which particular enhanced models we use, we overcome the disadvantages faced by clients with certain characteristics such as functional impairments, poor health, or psychiatric symptoms. We should never assume that clients with particular features are going to fail—the evidence indicates that good service delivery works for all kinds of clients.

You also need to keep in mind that people need to receive more vocational services to complement the levels of clinical services they are offered. Programs that say they serve people vocationally, but deliver massive amounts of clinical or case management services, along with very few vocational services, do not achieve good outcomes. Some people may need extra assistance or tailoring of programs to meet special needs. They may need help with medical problems, special support for dealing with troublesome symptoms or help finding jobs where symptoms don’t matter as much, or extra training for those with little prior work experience who are less familiar with the ins and outs of labor force participation and the informal aspects of the workplace.

Jobs need to be of higher quality, better paying, and at higher levels of expertise. We need to change our focus from conceptualizing vocational rehabilitation as a series of sequential jobs to consumers building careers.