Title: An investigation of the usefulness of Social Firms in promoting vocational recovery for people with mental health problems
Funder: Department of Health (England)

Abstract: Background Work is important for mental health and the lack of it a core part of the social exclusion of the mentally ill. In the UK people with severe mental health problems have very high rates of unemployment though most say they wish to work. Although there has been much recent interest in Individual Placement and Support (IPS) this model is unlikely to be able to meet the vocational needs of all service users. Social firms are businesses which pay open market wages and employ those disadvantaged from the labour market such as people with mental health problems Thus they represent an important opportunity for improving employment rates in this group. Social Firms in the UK are under researched and there is a lack of empirical evidence about their benefits for people with mental health problems Aims The overall purpose of the project is to investigate how NHS mental health services can best use Social Firms as partner agencies to promote the social inclusion of secondary mental health service users and how best this might be achieved to benefit patients. Specific aims are: 1. To understand what Social Firms offer people with mental health problems and how they operate to achieve this 2. To examine the degree to which people with mental health problems working in Social Firms are typical of service users seen in secondary mental health services. 3. To understand from service users', social firm managers' and clinicians' perspectives the scope and effectiveness of Social Firms in offering employment opportunities to people with mental health problems Plan of Investigation The investigation will have three components - A UK national questionnaire survey of Social Firm managers will be conducted in order to answer Aim 1. - To address Aim 2 we will use a cross sectional study of people with mental health problems who are Social Firm employees to investigate the severity of their mental health problems and their level of functional disability. - To answer aim 3 we will interview Social Firms employees with mental health problems, managers of Social Firms and mental health professionals to better understand from their perspectives what this model of employment can offer and how it could be developed to enhance patient benefit. Potential Impact This study will provide much more evidence than has previously been available about the contribution that Social Firms can make to tackling the unemployment and social exclusion faced by the severely mentally ill. Understanding what sort of employment opportunities are available, whether people with severe mental health problems and functional disability can sustain these jobs and how they are supported in doing so (with service user employee views integral to the exercise) will allow assessment of how best this model can be used to help mental health service users. This new understanding will be useful to policy makers and service planners in developing new partnerships, with the aim of raising employment rates among mental health service users above their current very low levels.


Research activity codes: 8.1 ORGANISATION AND DELIVERY OF SERVICES
Health categories: MENTAL HEALTH