SEI participants received continuous case management over the full 20-month intervention period. For the first eight months, participants attended classes twice a week for one and a half hours each session. In the vocational skills acquisition phase (four months), participants learned vocational skills such as, photography and silk-screening. In the small business skills acquisition phase (four months), participants learned accounting, budgeting, marketing, and management skills. Through these two phases, participants learned to silk-screen their photographic artwork onto apparel for sale. In the final 12 months of the program, participants developed a social enterprise within the host agency to sell their apparel.
Youth were eligible to participate in the study if they were between the ages of 16 and 24, spoke English, had a desire to work, and had a clinical diagnosis in the past year for one of six mental illnesses. The intervention was implemented in Los Angeles, CA.
Comparing the effectiveness of SEI with that of IPS reveals the effect of being referred to a set of services that includes those unique to SEI, or how much better the offer of SEI meets participants’ needs than the offer of IPS. In contrast with SEI, IPS services were provided individually rather than in class settings, and participants started a job search as soon as they enrolled in the study. IPS participants were assigned to an employment specialist who worked with them to obtain competitive jobs in the community.
Low
