Best Practices: A National Mental Health Learning Collaborative on Supported Employment

Abstract

This column describes a best practice for dissemination and implementation used by the Johnson & Johnson-Dartmouth Program: a national learning collaborative among community mental health programs on supported employment. In this two-tiered learning collaborative, researchers meet regularly with mental health and vocational rehabilitation leaders in 12 states and the District of Columbia, and state leaders oversee more than 130 individual programs in their respective states. Participants share educational programs, implementation and intervention strategies, practice experiences, outcome data, and research projects. The national learning collaborative facilitates implementation, dissemination, standardization, and sustainability of supported employment.

Using a Theory-Guided Learning Collaborative Model to Improve Implementation of EBPs in a State Children’s Mental Health System: A Pilot Study

“…LCs in the mental health context are adapted from quality improvement collaborative (QIC) models used in healthcare, the most widely cited of which is the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s Breakthrough Series Collaborative (Ayers et al, 2005; Becker, 2011; Ebert, Amaya-Jackson, Markiewicz, Kisiel, & Fairbank, 2011; Institute for Healthcare Improvement, 2003; Kilo, 1998; Mittman, 2004; Ovretveit, 2002). The quality improvement (QI) processes at the core of these collaborative models are rooted in industrial process improvement strategies, particularly the use of ongoing data collection and analysis to identify problems and to drive continuous learning and improvement (Deming, 1986; Juran, 1951; Juran, 1964).…”

Employer attitudes about criminal histories.

“…Trainers from 12 states within an IPS learning collaborative (Becker et al, 2011) each nominated one employment specialist to serve as an interviewer. We used five criteria to select interviewers: at least one year's experience as an employment specialist, demonstrated good employment outcomes, corrifort initiating employer contacts, commitment to the IPS model, and interest in helping people with criminal histories to find employment.…”

“…Over the last two decades, a specific model of supported employment, individual placement and support (IPS), has become the standard approach adopted in many states (Becker et al, 2011). IPS is based on eight principles: eligibility based on consumer choice, focus on competitive employment, integration of mental health and employment services, attention to client preferences, work incentives planning, rapid job search, systematic job development, and individualized job supports (Drake, Bond, & Becker, 2012).…”

Lessons Learned from Applying a Modified Learning Collaborative Model to Promote Change in Regional and Statewide HIV Care Systems

“…Collaborative resources valued most by participants have also been described in the literature and include the presence of collaborative faculty, availability of a change package and use of Plan-Do-Study-Act cycles [6,7,9,10]. Few studies have examined the use of LCs to effect change through broader systems of care such as statewide [5,11].…”