Challenges in implementing individual placement and support in the Australian mental health service and policy context.

Conclusions For IPS to be readily implemented, it is necessary for government to offer support to agencies to partner and formal endorsement of the model as a preferred approach in tendering processes. Obligations and processes must be reviewed to ensure that model fidelity is achievable within the Australian Commonwealth policy and service context for programs to achieve competitive employment rates comparable to the most successful international programs.What is known about the topic? The IPS model has been established as the most efficacious approach to support people with severe and persistent mental ill health to gain and sustain employment internationally, yet little is known as to why this model has had very limited uptake in the Australian adult mental health service and policy context.What does this paper add? This paper provides an investigation into the achievability of IPS within DES philosophical and contractual arrangements.What are the implications for practitioners? Mental health practitioners are typically skilled in their understanding of individual or micro-level challenges faced by consumers in achieving vocational goals: working with symptoms, medication side effects, motivation and anxiety. The present study was designed to offer practitioners an increased understanding of service-level factors, because these present considerable challenges to achieving sustained employment. This paper is a call for greater advocacy towards better integration of employme...

Source: Australian Health Review - January 19, 2017 Category: Hospital Management Authors: Stirling Y, Higgins K, Petrakis M Tags: Aust Health Rev Source Type: research