Individual Placement and Support (IPS) interventions to improve employment outcomes

Individual Placement and Support (IPS) is based on eight principles aimed at helping individuals  tofind and work in competitive jobs of their choosing. These principles are: competitive employment, systematic job development, rapid job search, integrated services, benefits planning, no client exclusion, worker preferences, and time-unlimited supports. IPS has been shown to be effective in improving employment of persons with serious mental disorders.

Individual Placement and Support interventions were found in a narrative systematic review (Harrison et al., 2019, 5 RCTs, 2 Cohort) to be effective in:

• improving employment outcomes (employment rates, hours worked, wages earned) in individuals with substance use disorders.

IPS is one of the interventions/programmes aimed at improving employment outcomes evaluated in another narrative review (Magura et Marshall, 2020, 14 studies). The other interventions were: Customized Employment Supports (CES), Therapeutic Workplace (TW), Drug court employement intervention, Job Seekers Workshop (JSW).

The review concluded that IPS had significant effect on:

• improving employment outcomes