Employment and mental health recovery: Revealing unused potential in multi-agency meetings

Abstract

Many people with mental health difficulties find employment crucial for their recovery and well-being. Collaboration among jobseekers, therapists in mental health services and social workers in welfare services might be essential to reach this recovery goal. In this qualitative study, we explore experiences from meetings within an individual placement and support (IPS) intervention in Norway. IPS is a vocational rehabilitation method emphasising collaboration between mental healthcare and social welfare practitioners. Although previous studies have found this collaboration challenging, none have explored these meetings. We conducted individual semi-structured interviews with 18 participants from six collaborating groups, i.e. six jobseekers, six therapists and six social workers, shortly after they had attended a meeting. To analyse the interviews, we used reflexive thematic analysis. The study revealed that the jobseekers expected the meetings to be an opportunity to elaborate on their situation, challenges and support needs. However, they experienced that this was only sometimes the case. Although the therapists and social workers thought they were the jobseekers’ meetings and wanted to hear about their situations, the meetings became more characterised by information exchange than dialogue. We claim that this shows the unused potential of the meetings, as well as the unused possibilities to facilitate recovery.