Vocational coaches for justice-involved emerging adults.

Abstract

Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine whether vocational supports for emerging adults with serious mental health conditions who are at high risk for re-arrest are more effectively served within Multisystemic Therapy for Emerging Adults (MST-EA) through vocationally enhanced MST-EA Coaches or through referral to state vocational rehabilitation services. Methods: A pilot randomized controlled trial examined two MST-EA Coaching approaches. In the Standard Coach + VR condition (n = 16), MST-EA Coaches delivered standard skills curricula to participants and referred them to state vocational rehabilitation (VR) services for vocational supports. In the Vocational Coach condition, (n = 16), MST-EA Coaches delivered the standard skills curricula enhanced with extensive education/employment components. Analyses included pre- to post-treatment comparisons of vocational outcomes, and between groups comparisons of fidelity, satisfaction, and services utilization. Results: Those in the Vocational Coach condition had a twelvefold increase in the odds of post- treatment vocational activity compared to those in the Standard Coach+VR condition (92.9% vs. 57.1% employed or in school, respectively). Subgroup analyses of those who engaged in Coaching showed that there was specifically an increase in the odds of post-treatment educational engagement among those in the Vocational Coach condition compared to those in Standard Coach+VR. Conclusions and Implications for Practice: Based on the strength of the findings in this small pilot study the Vocational Coach should be included in future clinical trials of MST-EA to maximize treatment impact for supporting emerging adult vocational functioning and thus reducing antisocial behavior.

Stakeholders’ Perspectives of Reentry to School and Community for Young Offenders With Disabilities: An Ecological Approach

“…Through examination of the role of the TS, Davis and colleagues (2018) identified preliminary data that support the use of a vocational coach as an added component to MST. This vocational coach provided a set of activities with the youth that are a subset of some of the activities the TS provides as a direct service to the young offenders in Project STAY OUT.…”

Vocational Interventions to Improve Employment Participation of People with Psychosocial Disability, Autism and/or Intellectual Disability: A Systematic Review

“…The characteristics of the RCT studies included can be seen in Table 1. Most studies with people with psychosocial disabilities included individuals with a variety of mood, anxiety, and/or psychotic disorders [27,29,[46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58]. Three studies included participants with schizophrenia only [59][60][61], three studies exclusively included individuals with psychosis [62][63][64], and in one study all participants had post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) [28].…”

“…In the three studies including participants with autism, youth were assessed as having autism with a medical diagnosis of ASD or an educational identification of autism [45,65,66]. Nearly half of the studies included were performed in the USA (n = 12) [27][28][29]45,49,53,55,[59][60][61]65,66]. Three studies were carried out in the UK [54,63,67], three in Canada [48,52,64], two in Japan [51,58], two in Australia [57,62], and one in each of Sweden [46], Switzerland [47], the Netherlands [50], and Hong Kong [56].…”

“…The only interventions assessed for people with autism was Project SEARCH and ASD Supports [65,66,68]. The duration of interventions ranged widely, from 5-10 business days [29,59] to 5 years [44], with some studies placing no limits on intervention duration [27,50]. In two studies the intervention duration was unclear [51,54].…”

“…IPS/SE was designed and widely practiced in the US to support people with Severe Mental Illness (SMI) and is increasingly implemented in other OECD contexts. There have also been small scale trials of IPS with other cohorts, such as returned veterans, adults within the justice system, and young people with autism [25][26][27][28][29].…”