Test it, prove it, scale it. That's how we work.
Laura Chisholm IPS Grow Regional Lead for London with an IPS Employment Specialist
Watch the video to find out how IPS Grow works on the ground
What is Individual Placement and Support (IPS)?
To understand IPS Grow, you first need to understand IPS.
Individual Placement and Support (IPS) is an evidence-based employment support approach originally developed in the United States for people experiencing mental health and addiction issues. It offers intensive individually tailored support to help people to choose and find the right job, with ongoing support for the employer and employee to help ensure the person keeps their job.
IPS is based on eight underlying principles. These include:
- A focus on competitive employment, rather than volunteering or sheltered work.
- Zero exclusion
- Open to all who want to work
- Close integration between employment specialists and health teams.
IPS has been shown to be more effective the more closely it follows these eight principles:
- It aims to get people into competitive employment – volunteering or sheltered work are not counted as outcomes.
- It is open to all those who want to work – with no exclusions based on diagnosis, health condition or benefits claim.
- It tries to find jobs consistent with people’s preferences.
- It works quickly – job search starts within four weeks, even if a client has been off work for years.
- It brings employment specialists into clinical teams – so that employment becomes a core part of mental health treatment and recovery.
- Employment specialists develop relationships with employers based on a person’s work preferences – not based on who happens to have jobs.
- It provides ongoing, individualised support for the person and their employer – helping people to keep their jobs at difficult times.
- Benefits counselling is included – so no one is made worse off by participating.
I was over the moon about getting this job — getting back to work was so important for my recovery and my mental stability. Working in a library has been my dream and I am so happy this was recognised by my IPS worker and she made this happen.
Service user supported by an NHS IPS Employment Specialist, Oxford Health IPS Employment & Job Retention Service
Why did Social Finance decide to focus on IPS?
In 2013 when Social Finance first started thinking about the systemic social problems resulting from large groups of people with health conditions being out of work, we noticed two things:
1. People with severe mental illness had the most difficulty accessing employment.
2. There was an well-evidenced model of personalised employment support called Individual Placement and Support (IPS) that had been around for some time, but hadn’t scaled in the UK.
Social Finance set out to understand what we could do to solve that challenge and help the IPS model to scale nationally.
We did this by launching a test and learn programme for IPS called the Health and Employment Partnership (HEP), and by setting up the Mental Health Employment Partnership (MHEP) — the World’s first IPS Social Impact Bond.
Why did Social Finance launch IPS Grow?
In 2019, building on the evidence of HEP and MHEP, Social Finance launched IPS Grow to oversee the government’s roll out of IPS services into NHS mental health teams across England.
IPS Grow is now the national support system for Independent Placement and Support (IPS).
We’ve worked with NHS England, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), and the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) to help over 200 IPS teams to mobilise.
We conduct independent fidelity reviews (quality assurance) and provide technical support to ensure IPS services adhere to the evidence-base and deliver expected outcomes.
Our support for IPS providers, health services, NHS Trusts and commissioners includes:
- Implementation support, which often involves organisational and culture change.
- A range of training including free e‑learning courses.
- Quality assurance fidelity reviews, helping services understand what they are doing well, and how they can continue to improve their performance and job outcomes via robust Fidelity Action Plans and good team leadership.
- Communities of practice networks – bringing IPS providers together so we can all learn together about how to make IPS work on the ground and achieve good quality outcomes for the people we serve.
- Technical IPS on-site support – helping providers to implement IPS practice on the ground which might include effective integration into clinical teams, building senior buy in and improving employer engagement.
- Workforce strategies to support the expanding workforce as IPS develops nationally.
We also aim to bring together a range of national stakeholders to support the development and expansion of IPS across England via the England IPS Expert Forum.
Fidelity can be explained as the degree to which the detail and quality of an original model (IPS in this case) are successfully copied or replicated
The IPS fidelity scale defines the critical ingredients of IPS and measures their implementation to differentiate between programmes that have fully implemented the model and those that have not.
The levels of IPS fidelity are:
- Exemplary: a practice scoring 115–125 points.
- Good: a practice scoring 100–114 points.
- Fair: a practice scoring 74–99 points.
- Not yet supported employment: a practice scoring 73 points or less.
Working in partnership to improve health and employment outcomes
I was able to help with strategy of how to increase referrals, how to integrate into the local area with employers, and support agencies as well as the DWP. A year down the line and it is now one of the top performing area for referrals and outcomes across the county. It has been great to see the Employment Specialists go from doubting themselves in the early days as referrals were slow, to now flourishing while maintaining a high standard of fidelity.
Jerome Johnson, IPS Employment Specialist & Team Leader, NHS Derbyshire Healthcare Work Your Way Employment Service
Delivering IPS to high-fidelity is critical; studies have shown that higher fidelity scores are predictive of higher job outcomes and that as services increase their fidelity to the model, they become more effective at placing clients into sustainable work.
This focus on quality – including the IPS Grow quality mark that we award to best performing services — has enabled IPS Grow to support thousands of individuals in finding meaningful employment, thereby aiding their recovery and improving wider social and economic outcomes.