Occupational Therapy News OTnews October 2019 | Page 29

WORK FEATURE
IPS is different to traditional models
Traditional models
Everyone has the potential to do real, paid work with the
right support. People’s readiness for work depends on their health
condition.
Start looking for work as soon as possible, then continue to
support the individual and the employer in work. Spend an extended period preparing for work before
starting to look for jobs. No/limited support in work.
The focus should be real, paid work, not volunteering or
other outcomes. Focus on a range of outcomes, with volunteering/training
more often achieved than real work.
Employment specialists and health clinicians are highly
integrated – and provide ‘shared care’ to clients. Employment specialists work independently of health teams
with limited interaction between them.
Gary Johnston is a director of operations at Social Finance,
which is running the IPS Grow service to support the expansion of
IPS services. He says: ‘What service users often say is that the IPS
worker – the employment specialist – is often the first person who
really believes in them, and gives them hope that they could get and
keep work.’
Employment specialists are taken on by IPS and placed in
community mental health teams, so that employment is promoted as
a health outcome, practical support is on hand and employment is
ultimately viewed as a core part of their recovery.
Says Gary: ‘The employment specialist role is a really interesting
job as there are two big parts to it. You have to be caring and build
rapport with a service user and build hope and engage with them,
but you also have to be like a sales person to go into the community
and find jobs that match with what your service user wants to do.’
One of the most obvious differences with traditional employment
support is how pro-active the IPS employment specialists are with
hunting out job opportunities matched to the aspirations of the
service user.
Employment specialists get to know the local job market very well
so that, as relationships are built up over time, the IPS employment
specialist can match service users into jobs of their choice or
employers approach them when vacancies come free.
Jasmin Sherratt is an occupational therapist by training who now
works as an IPS Grow Lead, supporting IPS services in the Midlands
to develop, and she describes the employment specialist role as
‘really recovery-focused work’.
Crucially, the eight principles of IPS say that people need support
into competitive employment, not volunteering or sheltered work. It is
also open to anyone who wants to work, with no exclusions based
on diagnosis, criminal convictions, health conditions or benefits
claims.
‘If you have a criminal offence we may have to think a little
differently on what employment somebody is supported into, but it’s
just being a bit creative about it,’ she says. then meet with an employment specialist within weeks, and start to
discuss what they can do.
‘A lot of the individuals we work with have held really high-
skilled jobs and they may need just a bit of support back to work
and need guidance through the interview process,’ says Jasmin,
‘while some people haven’t been in work for 10 years or more so
have nothing on their CV and need a lot of help. Confidence is
often a big issue.
‘For me, completing the vocational profile with the person holds
some similarities to the initial interview completed by the occupational
therapist. That’s when you find out about a person’s functioning,
explore how they structure their time, listen to their interests and
identify what family support they have. From that you formulate a
person’s vocational aspirations and go on from there.’
Support sometimes comes through job clubs to offer support
with CV writing or applying for jobs. Other times it could involve
conversations about personal hygiene and social skills.
Peer support workers with lived experience are also on hand
to offer advice. Support continues as long as the person wants it,
ensuring they start their role with someone available to help them
until they are fully settled. Research suggests that nine months is
normally enough.
‘Employment specialists have the time to support someone while
others are too pressured,’ says Jasmin. ‘They have a small caseload
– generally 20 cases – so they can meet someone once or twice a
week and have phone calls.
‘Because they are only focusing on paid employment the person
feels they can work and have hope at recovery, and not just head
for volunteering. It’s that hope and inspiration to think, you’re good
enough for paid work, let’s find it.’
Adds Gary: ‘Often the clinical teams say that the employment
specialist brings not just hope for the service users but also hope for
the clinical team. It’s wonderful to have this resource and offers an
extension of what the clinical team can do and help someone go that
extra step in terms of recovery.’
The work IPS and occupational therapists
IPS users come to the service through self-referral or by being
referred by the clinical treatment team or other professionals. They
So what does this all mean for occupational therapists? ‘Get clued
up on IPS – what it offers and how it’s different from the occupational
OTnews October 2019 29
IPS