Service Intensity and Job Tenure in Supported Employment:

Within the vocational rehabilitation field, one success story has been the emergence of the Individual Placement and Support (IPS) model of support employment for clients with psychiatric disabilities (Becker & Drake, 2003). The core principles of this model are (1) a focus on competitive employment (which refer to regular community jobs, with nondisabled coworkers, paying minimum wage or higher), (2) eligibility based on consumer choice, (3) rapid job search, (4) integration of mental health and employment services, (5) attention to consumer preference in the job search, (6) individualized job supports and (7) personalized benefits counseling (Bond, 2004). Because of the superior competitive employment outcomes for clients enrolled in these programs compared to other vocational services (Bond, Drake, & Becker, 2008), this model has been identified as evidence-based supported employment. However, despite consistently strong findings, it has been frequently observed that the strongest findings have been for job acquisition, and that the findings for job retention have been less consistent (Wallace & Tauber, 2004). In other words, the challenge for people with severe mental illness is not so much in finding jobs as in keeping them (Bond, Drake, Mueser, & Becker, 1997). Ongoing support from a supported employment team has been hypothesized as a key t