Dori S. Hutchinson

Evaluation of a combined supported computer education and employment training program for persons with psychiatric disabilities.

Meaningful work is described as one of the functional indicators of healing and growth beyond the disability and is seen as critical in recovering a personal sense of worth and value. We describe a supported education-supported employment program which focused on teaching computer, recovery and work skills. A program evaluation was implemented on four consecutive classes of this program. Four classes with a convenience sample of sixty-one students were involved in the evaluation over years. The program utilized a one group pretest, posttest design, with repeated measures over time. Following the 10-month classroom training phase, students entered a 2-month internship to give them computer office work experience. Students were interviewed quarterly using standardized assessments involving work and other subjective outcomes. Results suggest that overall the students experienced a positive change in work status and income and a decrease in mental health services utilization. In addition, non-vocational outcomes, specifically self-esteem and empowerment improved. The program represents a successful integration of supported education and supported employment program models.

Results of an Innovative University-based Recovery Education Program for Adults with Psychiatric Disabilities

This study examined the effectiveness of an educational approach to psychiatric rehabilitation called the Recovery Center. Using a quasi-experimental design we recruited 97 intervention and 81 comparison participants and examined the intervention’s impact on health, mental health, subjective, and role functioning outcomes. Results suggested that this intervention was effective in improving subjective outcomes, especially empowerment and recovery attitudes, both of which received primary emphasis in the intervention. The Recovery Center, which integrates a bio-psychosocial framework with psycho-educational interventions shows promise as a complement to traditional mental health services in developing readiness for rehabilitation and promoting recovery among individuals with severe psychiatric disabilities.

The Quest for Optimal Health: Can Education and Training Cure What Ails Us?

This paper reviews the current need for training and education in the pursuit of optimal health for mental health consumers. Recommendations for building the capacity of consumers and the mental and medical health-care systems to support the self-directed recovery of health by persons living with mental illness are made.

The recovery education center: an integrated health promotion and wellness program.

TOPIC This brief report describes a recovery education program that is designed to develop health as a foundation for recovery from psychiatric illnesses. PURPOSE Using readiness to change theory, health promotion, and psychiatric rehabilitation processes that are bundled in an adult education model of service, participants learn the knowledge, skills, and supports they want and need to increase their domains of wellness that will support their recovery. SOURCES USED Authors relevant knowledge and citations of health and behavioral health evidence. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE Health promotion that is delivered in a healthy environment enhances peoples quality of life, promotes readiness for role change and in the end, works to ensure that people with mental illnesses have a right to optimal health. To support rehabilitation and recovery, practitioners are encouraged to review this program model and select elements described to replicate in various mental health settings.

An Integrated Supported Employment and Education Model: Exploratory Study of an Innovative Approach Designed to Better Meet the Needs of Young Adults with Psychiatric Conditions

Educational attainment and work outcomes are inextricably linked, both in individuals with psychiatric disabilities and in the general population. US Census data suggests that educational attainment among individuals with psychiatric disabilities lags behind the general population, further contributing to poverty and diminished roles in society. Cognitive and symptom-related difficulties often result in educational and work disruptions for individuals with psychiatric disabilities, which in turn reinforce the long-term trajectory of disability and unemployment. Supported employment and supported education approaches designed to improve work and school outcomes of individuals with psychiatric disabilities have been developed and tested. However, recipients of those services often obtain low-wage, short-term jobs, and fail to leave the disability rolls. Further education may help to remedy this, but there are few tested supported education interventions and few models that integrate both supported employment (SE) and education (SEd), though recent demonstrations suggest promise. Program models that recognize the need for career guidance and the effects of participation in supported education on employment outcomes have been under-studied.