Economic Evaluation of Supported-Employment Inspired Program for Pupils With Intellectual Disabilities

Abstract

<div class="page" title="Page 1"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column">In this study, we investigate whether, or to what degree, a ‘business case’ could be made for implementation of a Supported-Employment (SE) inspired program for pupils with intellectual disabilities (IDs), starting during the final school years. For this aim, we do a quasi-experimental before-after intervention impact evaluation of such a project funded by the European Social Fund in the Swedish city of Örebro (135,000 inhabitants) during 2010–2013. From an estimate of the average treatment effect, we calculate the internal net present value and the payback period that would make this program break even from avoided expenditure for day-activity services, assuming that it had been funded entirely by the municipality. </div></div></div>

Economic analyses of supported employment programmes for people with mental health conditions: A systematic review

“…Twelve studies that scored 70% or more on quality focused on IPS, were linked to RCTs, and concluded that it was cost-effective [17,18,20,25,30,31,[33][34][35][36][41][42][43]. Only two IPS studies were from the USA [30,36]; most IPS [3,18,20,23,31,41,51,56], where IPS services have been implemented and there is good access to welfare and health registry data to follow-up service users.…”

“…Five out of seven cost-benefit analyses of SE interventions had positive net benefits [3,47,49,52,56], for instance, $6,627 to $40,012 per participant in Switzerland under different scenarios over 20 years [52]. A US study on SE for autism, intellectual disabilities, and other mental health conditions, from a public purse perspective, had various benefit-to-cost ratios, depending the presence of comorbid conditions (without secondary diagnosis = 1.46 versus with secondary diagnosis = 1.49), with the highest net benefits of 2.2 shown for learning disabilities over 6 years [49].…”

“…However, uncertainty over long-term costs and sustaining employment meant the time to achieve positive benefits might be between seven and 12 years. Another Swedish intervention, similar to IPS but using employment internships as an intermediate step to employment, was targeted at pupils in their final school year [56]. Registry data confirmed participation was associated with increased rates of future employment, generating positive net economic benefits after 7 years.…”

How New Zealand schools manage the transition of disabled students leaving secondary education: A multiple-case study

“…A standout feature of Waimea's programme was the fostering of microenterprises. In response to NZ's low employment rate for disabled people (Statistics NZ, 2014), the running a micro-enterprise and enabling self-employment are alternative pathways which international research suggests is a promising direction (Ashley & Graf, 2017;Galle Jr & Lacho, 2009;Reddington & Fitzsimons, 2013;Tholén, Hultkrantz, & Persson, 2017). The participants at Waimea felt employers would be more open to offer work if they could meet the students first.…”