The goal of achieving national coverage for Individual Placement and Support (IPS) in community drug and alcohol treatment is very close to being met, says a RAND Europe and King’s College review, with 145 out of 151 local authorities now delivering it.
Originally developed for people receiving treatment for mental illness, IPS is a highly individualised employment support model that was first trialled in drug and alcohol services in 2018. The 2021 ten-year drug strategy then committed to achieving full coverage by March of this year. ‘I wanted IPS available in every local authority,’ Professor Dame Carol Black told DDN earlier this year, adding that ‘we are getting results – we’re getting people back into work, or into work for the first time’.
The aim of the new study, which was commissioned by OHID, is to evaluate the scale-up and delivery of IPS in the treatment sector in order to identify barriers, share good practice and inform service improvement. OHID’s first study of IPS for people in drug and alcohol treatment randomly allocated participants into two study arms, one receiving standard employment support and the other receiving IPS, and found that IPS ‘helped more participants achieve employment in the open job market than standard employment support’.
While it takes time to embed IPS in treatment services most IPS teams reported a high level of integration, the new report states, with team members using a range of strategies – such as sharing personal stories as well as data – to raise awareness and challenge misconceptions held by some treatment staff about the role of employment in recovery. ‘Building strong relationships with treatment staff is crucial for effective integration and promoting referrals to the IPS service,’ it says. All IPS teams operating for six months or more were invited to take part, with in-depth qualitative research carried out in ten case-study areas, including interviews and workshops with clients, staff and commissioners.
The scale of IPS delivery in England ‘supports peer-to-peer networking and the sharing of good practice both within and beyond the drug and alcohol treatment context’, the document says, adding that IPS is ‘widely perceived to have benefits for clients beyond employment including improved treatment outcomes, greater confidence and self-belief, and financial independence’.
However, while the knowledge and skills of IPS team members were crucial to its success, ‘time-limited funding makes recruitment and retention more challenging’, says the review, as most were employed on fixed-term contracts. ‘Moreover, the commissioning structure of IPS in drug and alcohol treatment results in small team sizes which are less resilient to turnover.’ Many commissioners had expressed concerns about uncertainty regarding future funding for IPS ‘and what this will mean for delivery’, it adds.
Report available here