Gary R Bond

Westat · Health Studies Sector

Objective: This study investigated variations in the measurement of fidelity to coordinated specialty care (CSC) within the Early Psychosis Intervention Network (EPINET), a learning health system that consists of 101 CSC programs within eight hubs. The study investigated the degree to which five fidelity scales could be mapped onto a standard scal...

Individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), a chronic and disabling psychiatric disorder, experience high rates of occupational impairment. OCD symptoms commonly affect individuals' vocational aspirations and result in disability and the need for financial support, problems that are not addressed by current clinical practice guideline rec...

Objective: Many young adults who are unemployed and not in school need support achieving employment goals. Individual Placement and Support (IPS) is an evidence-based employment practice for adults with serious mental illness, but its applicability to young adults with mental health conditions has not been well-researched. The present study prospec...

Over the past three decades, Individual Placement and Support (IPS) has emerged as a robust evidence‐based approach to helping people with severe mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depression, to obtain and succeed in competitive employment. This review addresses the history, principles, research, and future direct...

Aim: Individual Placement and Support (IPS), an evidence-based supported employment model developed for adults with serious mental illness, has been recently targeted to young adults with mental health conditions, but little is known about its adoption in this age group in the United States. Methods: We recruited a volunteer sample of nine IPS p...

BACKGROUND: Increased federal attention to advancing racial equity and support for underserved communities suggests the need for data on racial and ethnic differences in evidence-based employment services for people with serious mental illness. Individual Placement and Support (IPS) is an evidence-based model of supported employment for this popula...

Individual placement and support (IPS) is a robust evidence-based model of supported employment for people with mental health conditions that has been implemented in high-income countries. The model is now being extended to new populations and settings, often with modifications. Current evidence indicates that minor modifications may increase fit,...

Most clients with severe mental illnesses (SMI) such as schizophrenia and treatment refractory major mood disorders want to work, but fewer than 15% within the public mental health system are currently employed. Most identify employment as a primary goal because working is a normal adult role and it provides meaning, social contact, community integ...

Young adults with mental health conditions want to work and advance their education, but many need help attaining these goals. Individual Placement and Support (IPS), originally developed for working-age adults with serious mental illness, is an evidence-based employment model that may benefit young adults. This study is the first systematic review...

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine Individual Placement and Support (IPS) employment specialists who expanded and enhanced the IPS model for the youngest of working age youth with mental health conditions (ages 16–21). Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 100% of the providers delivering IPS-based career services for high...

Background Despite widespread use of learning collaboratives, few randomized trials have evaluated their effectiveness as a strategy for implementing evidence based practices. This randomized trial evaluated the effectiveness of a virtual learning collaborative (VLC) in the implementation of a health promotion program for persons with serious menta...

Background: Military personnel face numerous challenges transitioning from military jobs to meaningful civilian employment. Many veterans seek help finding employment, but few veteran employment programs have been rigorously studied. Transitioning veterans generally have access to Local Community Resources (LCR), which include the Veterans Health A...

Aims Individual placement and support (IPS) is an evidence-based service model to support people with mental disorders in obtaining and sustaining competitive employment. IPS is increasingly offered to a broad variety of service users. In this meta-analysis we analysed the relative effectiveness of IPS for different subgroups of service users both...

Background Investigations of implementation factors (e.g., collegial support and sense of coherence) are recommended to better understand and address inadequate implementation outcomes. Little is known about the relationship between implementation factors and outcomes, especially in later phases of an implementation effort. The aims of this study w...

Objective: Among veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), supported employment that utilizes the individual placement and support (IPS) model has resulted in consistently better employment and functional outcomes than usual vocational rehabilitation services. This study aimed to compare these two approaches in terms of health services u...

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) leads to significant disability, unemployment, and substantial healthcare costs. The cost-effectiveness of vocational rehabilitation (VR) interventions is important to consider when determining which services to offer. This study assesses the cost-effectiveness and return on investment of Individual Placement a...

Objective Cognitive functioning is a potent predictor of work in people with a severe mental illness, including those receiving vocational services. Cognitive remediation has been shown to improve cognitive functioning and work outcomes in people receiving vocational services. However, it is unknown whether it reduces the strength of cognitive func...

Background: Investigations of implementation factors are recommended to better understand and address inadequate implementation outcomes. Little is known about the relationship between implementation factors and outcome, especially in later phases of an implementation effort. The aims of this study were to assess the association between implementat...

Transitioning from military service is stressful for veterans with service-connected disabilities seeking civilian employment. This descriptive study examined self-assessed mental health, well-being, and substance use of men and women shortly before or after transition from US military service, compared to norms from community and military samples....

Military personnel face numerous challenges transitioning from military jobs to meaningful civilian employment. The Independence Project compared an innovative employment program (National Career Coach Program) with standard employment services (Local Community Resources) in a randomized controlled trial. Study participants were transitioning veter...

Background Employment is associated with better outcomes of substance use treatment and protects against relapse after treatment completion. Unemployment rates are high for people with substance use disorders (SUD) who undergo treatment, with Norwegian estimates ranging from 81 to 91%. Evidence-based vocational models are lacking for patients in SU...

Objective: Individual placement and support (IPS), an evidence-based supported employment practice, is a core service in community mental health in the United States. Several factors promote the growth of IPS, including a network of 24 states participating in a learning community devoted to expanding IPS services. This study examined growth of IPS...

Purpose Service providers need effective strategies to implement evidence-based practices (EBPs) with high fidelity. This study aimed to evaluate an intensive implementation support strategy to increase fidelity to EBP standards in treatment of patients with psychosis. Methods The study used a cluster randomized design with pairwise assignment of...

Psychiatric crisis care in the U.S. exemplifies the “more is less paradox” of U.S. health care. We spend more for health care than any other high-income country, yet our outcomes are typically poor compared to these other countries (OECD in OECD health statistics. Retrieved from https://www.oced.org/health/health-data.html, 2020). We do this, in pa...

Social Security Administration demonstration projects that are intended to help people receiving disability benefits have increased employment but not the number of exits from disability programs. The Supported Employment Demonstration (SED) is a randomized controlled trial (RCT) of services for individuals with mental health problems before they e...

Evidence-based supported employment has become a core community mental health service in much of the U.S. Although a national learning community has facilitated progress in about half of the states, other states have tried to implement evidence-based supported employment on their own. Many studies have examined site-level factors influencing implem...

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused massive unemployment, exacerbated pre-existing behavioral health (mental health and substance use) disorders for many people, and created new disorders for others. Although policy changes have increased health care and unemployment benefits, most people want jobs and self-sufficiency rather than handouts. A robust e...

PurposeIndividual placement and support (IPS) is an evidence-based supported employment intervention. Quality of IPS implementation is assessed using a validated fidelity scale. Previous studies found a positive association between fidelity and employment outcomes at a single time-point. This study examines the longitudinal associations between IPS...

Evidence-based practices are effective only when implemented faithfully. This paper explicates the history, standardization, and methods for developing and validating measures of fidelity. We overviewed the past 20 years of developing fidelity measures, summarized standardization of the development procedures, and described needed psychometric asse...

This study examined the psychometric properties and feasibility of the Illness Management and Recovery (IMR) Fidelity scale. Despite widespread use of the scale, the psychometric properties have received limited attention. Trained fidelity assessors conducted assessments four times over 18 months at 11 sites implementing IMR. The IMR Fidelity scale...

The paper describes the Antipsychotic Medication Management Fidelity Scale and its psychometric properties, including interrater reliability, frequency distribution, sensitivity to change and feasibility. Fidelity assessors conducted fidelity reviews four times over 18 months at eight sites receiving implementation support for evidence-based antips...

Mental health programs need an instrument to monitor adherence to evidence-based physical health care for people with serious mental illness. The paper describes the Physical Health Care Fidelity Scale and study interrater reliability, frequency distribution, sensitivity to change and feasibility. Four fidelity assessments were conducted over 18 mo...

To assess the implementation of effective practices, mental health programs need standardized measures. The General Organizational Index (GOI), although widely used for this purpose, has received minimal psychometric research. For this study, we assessed psychometric properties of the GOI scale administered four times over 18 months during the impl...

This study examined psychometric properties and feasibility of the Family Psychoeducation (FPE) Fidelity Scale. Fidelity assessors conducted reviews using the FPE fidelity scale four times over 18 months at five sites in Norway. After completing fidelity reviews, assessors rated feasibility of the fidelity review process. The FPE fidelity scale sho...

This special section presents the psychometric properties of fidelity scales used in a national mental health services project in Norway to improve the quality of care of people with psychoses. Across Norway, 39 clinical units in six health trusts participated. The project provided education, implementation support and fidelity assessments. The pap...

Objective: The authors sought to evaluate the interrater reliability and feasibility of the First-Episode Psychosis Services Fidelity Scale-Revised (FEPS-FS-R) for remote assessment of first-episode psychosis programs according to the coordinated specialty care model. Methods: The authors used the FEPS-FS-R to assess the fidelity of 36 first-epi...

Many people with serious mental disorders want to work. Individual placement and support (IPS), an evidence-based program that helps such individuals find and maintain jobs of their choice, has spread steadily across the United States (which has more than 1,000 IPS programs) and to at least 19 other countries during the past 20 years. Four factors...

Background: Limited empirical evidence exists on the impact of adaptations that occur in implementing evidence-based practices (EBPs) in real-world practice settings. The purpose of this study was to measure and evaluate adaptations to an EBP (InSHAPE) for obesity in persons with serious mental illness in a national implementation in mental health...

Background: The clinical onset of borderline personality disorder (BPD) usually occurs in young people (aged 12-25 years) and commonly leads to difficulty achieving and maintaining vocational (education and/or employment) engagement. While current psychosocial interventions lead to improvements in psychopathology, they have little effect upon func...

This manual describes IPS supported employment and education services for adolescents and young adults (IPS-Y). IPS stands for Individual Placement and Support and indicates a type of supported employment program that is evidence-based for people who have mental illnesses. Growing evidence indicates that IPS may be an effective approach for other p...

Objective: In this commentary, we identify major themes found in this set of 11 articles, which examine the history of individual placement and support (IPS) adoption within each nation. Method: We summarize major barriers and strategies to achieve to IPS adoption and implementation and briefly discuss IPS research conducted in these countries....

Objective: In this study, the authors assessed the long-term impact of the Mental Health Treatment Study (MHTS), a randomized controlled trial testing the effects of providing 2 years of employment services based on the evidence-based individualized placement and support model to Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) recipients with serious...

Background: Implementation science comprises a large set of theories suggesting interacting factors at different organisational levels. Development of literature syntheses and frameworks for implementation have contributed to comprehensive descriptions of implementation. However, corresponding instruments for measuring these comprehensive descript...

Background: Despite widespread use of learning collaboratives in health care, few randomized trials have evaluated their effectiveness. The primary aim of this cluster randomized implementation trial is to evaluate the effectiveness of a virtual learning collaborative (VLC) in the implementation of a lifestyle intervention for persons with serious...

Objectives Individual placement and support (IPS) is an effective approach for helping people with severe mental illness gain employment. This study aimed to investigate if IPS can be effectively repurposed to support young adults at risk of early work disability due to various social and health related problems. Methods A randomized controlled tri...

The Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) is the principal advisor to the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on policy development issues, and is responsible for major activities in the areas of legislative and budget development, strategic planning, policy research and evaluation, and econ...

Objective:: A systematic review of studies of individual placement and support (IPS) for populations other than those with serious mental illness was conducted. Methods:: The authors searched three electronic databases (PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus) for studies of IPS and modified IPS. Eligibility criteria for the systematic review include...

Background Crisis resolution teams (CRTs) offer brief, intensive home treatment for people experiencing mental health crisis. CRT implementation is highly variable; positive trial outcomes have not been reproduced in scaled-up CRT care. Aims To evaluate a 1-year programme to improve CRTs’ model fidelity in a non-masked, cluster-randomised trial (p...

Evidence‐based policymaking is defined as using the best available research to inform policy, budget, and management decisions. In mental health, evidence‐based policy focuses mainly on strategies aimed at promoting evidence‐based programs. Policy strategies refer to actions either to formulate policy content or to promote program implementation. A...

Individual Placement and Support is a standardized model of supported employment, developed initially for people with serious mental disorders and now applied to people with a range of disabilities. More than two dozen randomized controlled trials around the world show that the approach helps a majority of participants to succeed in competitive emp...

Individual Placement and Support (IPS) is an evidence-based model of supported employment for people with serious mental illness. We assessed the effects and relative contributions of predictors of employment among IPS recipients using measures of baseline client characteristics, local economic context, and IPS fidelity. A recent work history, less...

Objective: Some researchers have argued for using standardized discharge rules in individual placement and support (IPS) based on time of unemployment. To evaluate potential adverse outcomes of these rules, the authors examined time to first job over 24 months in a large randomized controlled study. Methods: This secondary analysis of 2,055 part...

Background: People with severe mental illness (SMI) and criminal justice involvement (CJI) are able to achieve competitive employment when provided with evidence-based services, but outcomes are modest compared to studies of SMI in general. Aims: To investigate barriers to employment facing people with SMI and CJI receiving employment services. Met...

As Individual Placement and Support (IPS) has become the international standard for vocational rehabilitation of adults with serious mental illness, researchers must consider the relationship between IPS and local environments. This meta-analysis used mixed-effects meta-regressions to assess the impact of site-level moderators on the likelihood tha...

BACKGROUND: The Individual Placement and Support (IPS) Learning Community was established in 2002 to increase access to Individual Placement and Support (IPS) supported employment. In 2008, learning community leaders launched the Family Advocacy Project to advance the role of families in providing education and advocacy for IPS. OBJECTIVE: This pap...

State leaders often promote implementation of evidence-based practices but have difficulty sustaining and expanding them over time. This paper examines the activities of leaders in 13 states that have successfully implemented, sustained, and expanded evidence-based supported employment, known as Individual Placement and Support (IPS), for 4 to 12 y...

Youth with developmental and psychiatric disabilities encounter significant vocational challenges, even when they receive supported employment services. We examined the barriers to employment for 280 transition-age youth with disabilities enrolled in supported employment in eight community rehabilitation centers. Employment team members identified...

For people with psychiatric disabilities, demographic characteristics and measures of clinical status are often used to allocate scarce employment services. This study examined a battery of potential client predictors of competitive employment, testing the hypothesis that evidence-based supported employment would mitigate the negative effects of po...

Large-scale initiatives to expand evidence-based practices are often poorly implemented and rarely endure. The purpose of this study was to identify the perceived barriers and facilitators to sustainment of an evidence-based supported employment program, Individual Placement and Support (IPS). Within a 2-year prospective study of sustainment among...

The individual placement and support (IPS) model of supported employment for people with serious mental illness is an evidence-based practice. Factors including a national learning community promoting IPS and enforcement of the Supreme Court's Olmstead decision have spurred the growth of IPS nationwide. In this study we first evaluated the national...

Individual Placement and Support (IPS) is an evidence-based employment model for people with severe mental illness, but it has not been evaluated for clients enrolled in substance abuse treatment programs. This study evaluated the effectiveness of IPS for people with opioid use disorders enrolled in an opioid treatment program. Within a randomized...

Background Crisis Resolution Teams (CRTs) provide short-term intensive home treatment to people experiencing mental health crisis. Trial evidence suggests CRTs can be effective at reducing hospital admissions and increasing satisfaction with acute care. When scaled up to national level however, CRT implementation and outcomes have been variable. We...

American researchers have led the world in developing, evaluating, and disseminating evidence-based psychiatric rehabilitation practices for people with serious mental illness. Paradoxically, however, the USA lags behind most industrialized nations in providing access to high-quality mental health and psychiatric services. This essay examines sever...

Individual Placement and Support (IPS) is an evidence-based model of supported employment, originally deve- loped to help people with severe mental illness achieve competitive employment. The methodology challenges common misconceptions about work and mental health, and is supported by a large and growing body of research. This presentation summari...

Objective: The purpose of this study was to test the reliability and validity of the First-Episode Psychosis Services Fidelity Scale (FEPS-FS) and compare it with similar scales. Methods: A fidelity scale was developed from previously identified essential components of first-episode psychosis services. The scale was tested in six programs in two co...

Background: Early withdrawal or exclusion from the labor market leads to significant personal and societal costs. In Norway, the increasing numbers of young adults receiving disability pension is a growing problem. While a large body of research demonstrates positive effects of Supported Employment (SE) in patients with severe mental illness, no s...

Objective: The influence of employment on subsequent psychiatric hospitalization for people with serious mental illness is unclear. This study examined whether unemployed people with serious mental illness were more or less likely to experience psychiatric hospitalization after gaining employment. Methods: A secondary analysis was conducted of d...

The Social Security Administration's Mental Health Treatment Study (MHTS) produced positive mental health, employment, and quality of life outcomes for people on Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI). The investigators discuss major policy implications. First, because integrated, evidence-based mental health and vocational services produced c...

The majority of people with serious mental illnesses want to work. Individual placement and support services, an evidence-based supported employment intervention, enables about 60 percent of people with serious mental illnesses who receive the services to gain competitive employment and improve their lives, but the approach does not lead to fewer p...

Purpose of review: Supported employment is a vocational rehabilitation approach that eschews prevocational training in favor of rapid job search for competitive work and follow-along supports to sustain employment, with the individual placement and support (IPS) model being the most standardized and researched model. This review covers recent rese...

Objective: The purpose of this study was to test the reliability and validity of the First-Episode Psychosis Services Fidelity Scale (FEPS-FS) and compare it with similar scales. Methods: A fidelity scale was developed from previously identified essential components of first-episode psychosis services. The scale was tested in six programs in two...

Objective: Implementations of evidence-based mental health practices often disappear quickly, and few studies have examined sustainment. Since 2001, the Individual Placement and Support (IPS) learning community has promoted dissemination, implementation, sustainment, and expansion of IPS by using multiple strategies: online training, in-person tra...

As an alternative to hospital admission, crisis resolution teams (CRTs) provide intensive home treatment to people experiencing mental health crises. Trial evidence supports the effectiveness of the CRT model, but research suggests that the anticipated reductions in inpatient admissions and increased user satisfaction with acute care have been less...

Background: Fidelity scales are used to monitor adherence to evidence-based practices. The underlying assumption is that high fidelity predicts better outcomes. The IPS-25 is a fidelity scale measuring adherence to the Individual Placement and Support (IPS) model. A previous study found a significant association between the IPS-25 and competitive e...

Objective: This study examined barriers to employment among Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) beneficiaries who received comprehensive vocational and mental health services but were not successful in returning to work. Methods: This study examined barriers to employment among 430 SSDI beneficiaries with mental disorders who received ev...

This webinar describes the "Adapting Individual Placement Support (IPS) for Young Adults: The Thresholds study." The mission of the Transitions RTC is to improve the supports for youth and young adults, ages 14-30, with serious mental health conditions who are trying to successfully complete their schooling and training and move into rewarding work...

In their paradigm-shifting study, Stein and Test (1) developed and evaluated a community mental health treatment model for people with serious mental illness that became known as assertive community treatment (ACT). Their approach challenged many standard practices and beliefs in psychiatry. Based on earlier work, they had concluded (2) that hospit...

Employment is a key to participation in community life for people with severe mental illness, especially those who have been involved in the criminal justice system. Although the Individual Placement and Support (IPS) model of supported employment has been established as an evidence-based practice for helping people with severe mental illness attai...

Residential treatment settings can provide safety, stabilization, and treatment. Many also provide psychiatric rehabilitation, defined here as enhancement of supports and skills. Long-term residential treatment must balance potential benefits and harms. Critical issues include dependence, community inclusion, transfer of skills, supported employmen...

Objective: Employment is a key to participation in community life for people with severe mental illness, especially those who have been involved in the criminal justice system. Although the Individual Placement and Support (IPS) model of supported employment has been established as an evidence-based practice for helping people with severe mental il...

Effective services are needed to assist young people with serious mental health conditions to successfully transition to employment or education, especially among those with intensive adolescent mental health service utilization. To meet these needs, the Individual Placement and Support (IPS) model of supported employment was adapted and its feasib...

Introduction: This review synthesized prospective evidence to assess whether achieving employment alters the course of schizophrenia-spectrum disorder. Method: Researchers identified relevant analyses for review via PubMed, expert referral, and reference review and systematically applied two levels of screening to 1484 citations using seven a pr...

AimThe individual placement and support (IPS) model of supported employment was first developed in community mental health centres for adults with severe mental illness. While IPS is an established evidence-based practice in this broad population, evidence on its effectiveness focused specifically on young adults has been limited. The current study...

Aims: Young adults with early psychosis want to pursue normal roles - education and employment. This paper summarises the empirical literature on the effectiveness of early intervention programmes for employment and education outcomes. Methods: We conducted a systematic review of employment/education outcomes for early intervention programmes, d...

The Medication Management Approaches in Psychiatry (MedMAP) is a medication management evidence-based practice (EBP) to guide the use of psychotropic medications in the treatment of schizophrenia. This qualitative study examined facilitators and barriers to implementing MedMAP in community mental health treatment settings. Audio-taped qualitative i...

Objective: Information technology is opening up new ways to engage people who may benefit from psychiatric services. This study examined an intervention to promote engagement in supported employment for use with a tablet computer. Methods: In a randomized controlled trial, 45 clients at an urban community mental health agency received a software...