Eóin Killackey1,2, Kelly Allott1,2, Gina Woodhead4, Judy Ring3; 1Orygen, The National Centre of Excellence in Youth Mental Health, Parkville, Victoria, 2Centre for Youth Mental Health, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, 3Travencore School, Department of Education and Training, Parkville, Victoria, 4Orygen Youth Health, Parkville, Victoria
Background: Individual Placement and Support (IPS) is a proven intervention in helping people with psychotic illness return to, or enter into, work. In applying IPS to younger populations with First Episode Psychosis (FEP), education was seen as an equally valid outcome. However, educational outcomes were not significantly better in IPS groups compared to controls. This has been confirmed in meta-analyses of IPS in FEP. Hence, we conducted a pilot study of IPS adapted so as to have only education as a focus (IPSed). Method: 19 young people attending Orygen Youth Health in Melbourne were recruited and given access to IPSed. Results: 18 of the 19 participants had a positive outcome and either completed their course or completed prerequisite units to continue to the next level of their course. Conclusion: IPS has not been superior for education. There are a number of possible reasons for this. Firstly, that IPS was designed as an employment intervention and the IPS Fidelity scale reinforces this. Secondly, IPS workers often come from employment backgrounds and may not have the expertise to address educational goals. Finally, it may be that youth mental health services have historically included education as part of their developmental world-view, and so finding an effect above this is difficult. Results of our pilot study suggest that a singular focus on education may produce excellent outcomes. This result needs to be replicated but also raises questions about IPS for education in populations of young people with mental illness.
