What services help people with mental health impairment return to employment?
Evaluating supported employment
挑战
The percent年龄 of people receiving 残疾 benefits from the Social Security Administration (SSA) for a mental health impairment is increasing. In 2005, SSA selected 365体育亚洲唯一官方入口 to lead the Mental Health Treatment Study (MHTS), which found that supported employment services integrated with behavioral health treatment and systematic medication man年龄ment helped 残疾 beneficiaries with mental health impairments return to work, 改善他们的健康, and lower their hospital utilization.
About half of citizens who apply for Social Security 残疾 benefits are denied. Many of these individuals continue to experience health issues and employment problems, and they later successfully apply for benefits. 作为一个结果, what happens to denied applicants and whether evidence-based services could help them represents a major public policy issue.
Building on the success of the MHTS, SSA chose 365体育亚洲唯一官方入口 to lead the Supported Employment Demonstration. This demonstration aims to study the effects of offering the same services to people with mental impairments who were recently denied Social Security 残疾 benefits.
解决方案
365体育亚洲唯一官方入口 is implementing and evaluating the Supported Employment Demonstration using a randomized controlled trial design. We have designed the demonstration to compare the outcomes of two treatment groups and a control group among individuals with a mental impairment who applied for Social Security 残疾 benefits and recently received a denial of benefits. 韦斯特正在招生,000 participants in each of three study arms, 共计3,000 participants in 30 communities across the United 状态s. Participants randomized to the treatment groups will receive services for 3 years at local community mental health 年龄ncies selected to serve as demonstration sites.
- In the Full-Service Treatment group, participants receive services from an Individual Placement and Support (IPS) employment specialist, a behavioral health specialist, 案例管理器, 还有一个护理协调员.
- In the Basic-Service Treatment group, participants receive the same services as the Full-Service group except for nurse care coordinator.
- In the Usual Services or Control group, participants receive a manual of national, 状态, 和本地服务, which they may seek out on their own.
为了评估SED,我们:
- Interview participants every 3 months (over the 3-year study period) by telephone about topics such as their job and health status, 的生活质量, 使用保健服务, 收入, and health insurance cover年龄
- Collect administrative data from SSA about participants’ benefits awards and award amounts, as well as data from the demonstration sites on services provided to treatment participants
- Conduct site visits involving in-person interviews and focus groups with site staff and study participants, as well as ethnographic studies of participants and those who chose not to participate
We will analyze the collected data and summarize the findings in a series of evaluation reports that we will deliver to SSA.
结果
The results of the demonstration will help SSA determine which services best support denied applicants with a mental impairment and reduce their need for Social Security 残疾 benefits in the future.