Mental Disorders and Work Integration: A Retrospective Study in a Northern Italian Town

Abstract

Objectives: The present study was conducted in a vocational integration service of a northern Italian town with two major aims: to assess vocational integration programs undertaken from 1st January 2004 to 1st January 2007; and to identify job tenure-associated predictors.Methods: This is a retrospective study; we collected data such as gender, age, duration, type and outcome of the vocational integration program, and number of interventions performed by the vocational integration service. Self-report questionnaires were also used to assess the satisfaction of users, caregivers, practitioners, and of the company contacts involved in the study.Results: The service has enrolled 84 users during the observation period. Out of these users, 64.3% of them still had their jobs after three years. Users, caregivers and company contacts expressed high levels of satisfaction for the support received by the vocational integration service. The company expressed less satisfaction for the collaboration received by the Departments of Mental Health (DMHs) that coached the users. The only variable associated to the outcome was the number of interventions that the users received before their placement on the job. Conclusions: Despite all the limits of this study, its results show that the chance of taking advantage of a supported job placement service has likely proven itself effective in helping people with mental disorders to obtain and maintain a competitive employment. Our results, however, also point to the necessity of implementing newer strategies meant to develop a greater integration among all services dealing with mentally ill people.

Roles, Facilitators and Challenges of Employment Support Specialists Assisting Young People with Mental Health Conditions

“…As policy makers seek to understand and improve processes for people with MHCs in their transition to employment, community-wide interventions [ 38 ] and hospital-based employment initiatives such as the Supported Employment (SE) programme [ 39 ], IPS [ 15 , 40 ], family-aided assertive community treatment [ 41 ] and integrated case management including peer support specialist teams [ 42 ], are being implemented and tested in various countries. Systemic challenges to optimal employment support for people with MHCs identified consistently across studies include policy environments that may limit fund availability to community-based organizations and lack effective integration of efforts from community and clinical services [ 43 ], and higher cost of service delivery [ 40 ]. In the current study, participants shared variability in their frequency and duration of client engagement.…”