Mental Health & Human Resilience

Statement of the Problem: Literature indicates that the extent of employment mobility among people with psychiatric disabilities is low, even though most of them want and can work. Furthermore, while supported employment has significantly improve competitive work outcomes throughout the world, it leads to sustained work in only 25-35% of persons with psychiatric disabilities, while most persons loss jobs within a few weeks/months after beginning them or never obtain competitive work.

Methodology & Theoretical Orientation: Shekulo Tov is a non-profit organization and a service supplier for the Israeli Ministry of Health for more than 3,000 service users. Shekulo Tov’s integrative model represents an essential change of perception vis-à-vis vocational rehabilitation. It is a formative shift from the two sequential approaches of “train, then place” or “place then train” to a simultaneous approach of “train and place”. The model’s continued development led to the formation of the Shekulo Tov Group which operates in large number of businesses and organizations as integrative units based in the community, who all embedded the model among Shekulo Tov Group businesses: Rebooks (second hand bookshops), Good Coffee (social cafes), and God Dog (dog walkers).

Findings: The integrative model has successfully transitioned more than 25% of service users from vocational rehabilitation to open labour market placements. Furthermore, the model has reduced service users’ preparative vocational training for open labour market placement from 4 years to 20 months.

Conclusion & Significance: Along on-going support, job applicants are offered vocational rehabilitation, skills and career development, training programs and are provided with necessary preparation and support to measure their vocational progress. This gives them a security net, especially in cases; they did not hold their job in the free market. In these cases, service users can temporally return to vocational rehabilitation while looking for a new job in the free market.

Recent Publications:

1. Becker D, Whitley R, Bailey E L, Drake and RE (2007) Long-term employment trajectories among participants with severe mental illness in supported employment. Psychiatric Services (58):922-928.

2. Hartnett HP, Stuart H, Thurman H, Loy B and Batiste LC (2011) Employers’ perceptions of the benefits of workplace accommodations: reasons to hire retain and promote people with disabilities. J Vocat Rehabil. (34):17–23.

3. Kaye H S, Jans L H and Jones E C (2011) Why don’t employers hire and retain workers with disabilities? Journal of occupational rehabilitation (21):526-536.‏

4. Mattila-Holappa P, Joensuu M, Ahola K, Vahtera J and Virtanen M (2016) Attachment to employment and education before work disability pension due to a mental disorder among young adults. BMC Psychiatry (16):143-155.

5. Kuznetsova Y, Yalcin B and Priestley M (2017) Labour market integration and equality for disables people: A comparative analysis of Nordic and Baltic Countries. Social Policy Administration. (51):577-597.