Work Integration for People with Severe Mental Illness

Project summary

The evidence based Individual Placement Support (IPS) approach; developed to support people with SMI rapidly into competitive employment, includes help from employment specialists (ES) /job coaches, employers, and mental health care- and welfare service professionals. The strength of IPS is ways of “harnessing users own social and practical skills to achieve goals”; the ES`s competencies are known as predictors for the individual`s employment outcomes. Approximately 56% IPS employees are likely to get jobs; equally in Norway. However, as the average tenure in paid employment remains low, even with IPS support, we need to understand why. More synthesised knowledge is needed about a. what promotes and inhibits workparticipation for this population and b. of the core contributions of jobsupport across cultural contexts and continents. Qualitative studies about communtiy mental health views about serviceusers` work potential, and IPS users’ experiences of job suppost within the context of Norway is lacking. Thus, this projects has designed two metaethnografic studies and three qualitative sudies to explore and publish research on these aformentioned topics.