Predicting work outcomes and service use in supported employment services for persons with psychiatric disabilities

New funding policies make it timely to identify correlates of effectiveness and effciency in supported employment (SE) programs for persons with psychiatric disabilities. In a statewide sample of SE participants with serious mental illness, individual clinical characteristics were unrelated to competitive work or hours of services consumed. However, amounts of SE provider time devoted to travel, training, and nonemployment advocacy were independently related to the likelihood of obtaining competitive work. These results suggest that SE providers should pursue an individualized, participant-driven model of services that includes active efforts to remove logistical barriers to community employment.