Gary Bond, Ph.D.

The Individual Placement and Support (IPS) is an evidence-based model of supported employment for individuals with severe mental illness. However, little is known about the nature and intensity of follow-along support in IPS programs or how IPS helps clients become steady workers over the long term. This webcast summarizes the findings for a two-year follow-up study of follow-along support and employment outcomes for 142 IPS clients. We found that mean job tenure for IPS clients was twice that reported in the literature. We also found a significant association between frequency of follow-along contact and duration of employment. I discuss the study’s implications for specifying the employment specialist role after a job start and for enhancing the effectiveness of the IPS model with regard to job tenure.