Sample Questions for IPS Supported Employment Fidelity Interviews by Stakeholder This document lists sample questions by stakeholder group to help you gather information to make ratings on the Supported Employment Fidelity Scale. Remember, interviews are only one source of information. Observing mental health treatment team meetings, the IPS supported employment unit meeting, employment specialists conducting job development with employers, and reviewing client records provides additional information to make the overall ratings. Further, these are just ideas for questions that you may want to ask. It s sometimes helpful to tailor the questions for the agency and also to ask follow up questions based upon the answers that you hear. Some reviewers take these questions along so that they can scan them at the end of an interview and make sure that they ve covered all of the areas. Sample questions for case managers, therapists, counselors: Please describe the IPS supported employment program at this agency. How do you decide whether or not to talk about work with someone on your caseload? Describe a person who would be a good referral to IPS supported employment. A person who would not be a good referral to supported employment. Does the IPS supported employment program ever bounce back any referrals? For example, after meeting with someone, do they ever suggest that the person isn t ready for supported employment services? Would you be likely to suggest a job to a person who abuses drugs or alcohol? How do clients learn about supported employment? Do you have any programs or services that would help clients prepare for a job out in the community? Do you ever refer people to other vocational programs? For instance, is there a sheltered workshop in town (or at your agency)? A program where group of clients can work together with supervision? 1
Has there ever been a time when you felt that someone should stop focusing on work for a while in order to better focus on treatment? If so, how did you handle that situation? How do you keep in touch with the employment specialist(s)? How do you share information? How do you provide information for the employment plan? Can you give an example of a recent situation where you gave the employment specialist information that would help with job selection or job retention? About how many people on your caseload are working at jobs in the community? What percent do you think could work? Can you think of a time when the executive director for this agency spoke about work? What are his/her feelings about helping clients with work? What percent of clients at this agency are employed? Do working clients ever have opportunities to share their back to work stories with others at the agency (clients and/or staff) that you are aware of? Do the employment specialists ever help you out by doing things like getting someone to a doctor s appointment, helping someone with housing, taking someone to the grocery store. When was the last time? Do they help on a regular basis? Sample questions for psychiatrists: How do you decide whether or not to talk about work with someone on your caseload? Would you be likely to suggest a job to a person who abuses drugs or alcohol? How do you keep in touch with the employment specialist(s)? How do you share information? How do you provide information for the employment plan? Can you give an example of a recent situation where you gave the employment specialist information that would help with job selection or job retention? Have you ever helped with a job by making medication adjustments? 2
Has there ever been a time when you felt that someone should stop focusing on work for a while in order to better focus on treatment? If so, how did you handle that situation? Sample questions for employment specialists: How many people are currently on your caseload? Does your caseload reflect both active and inactive cases? How do you define inactive? Is your current caseload size the norm for you? Do you ever get asked to help with case management activities? For instance, helping someone find housing, helping someone pay their bills or helping someone get a food box. When was the last time? Is that a regular thing? Are you responsible for any duties at the agency other than supported employment? For instance, helping with groups, day treatment? Is there anyone on your caseload who doesn t have a case manager/primary worker? What happens when this person needs case management services? Have you ever received a referral that you thought was inappropriate? Why was that? Please describe a person who is a good referral for IPS supported employment? What types of factors would make a person a poor referral for supported employment? How about people who are abusing drugs or alcohol do you think that it makes sense for them to join the supported employment program? Please tell me about a time when you needed to look for a very specific job for a person. Thanks for bringing your date book. I was hoping to get a better understanding of what your job is like. For instance, could you show me what you did last week? What did you do on Monday? On Tuesday? Thanks for letting me observe while you were job developing. Can you tell me what your next step(s) might be? How did you learn to do job development? Does your supervisor ever go into the field with you? When was the last time? 3
I bet that some people on your caseload are ok with you talking to employers on their behalf, while others aren t. Do you have a feel for how many are ok with disclosure? If you were going to help me with a job search, how would you explain the issue of disclosure? Do you ever bring up disclosure on more than one occasion? If so, what would trigger another discussion about disclosure? Tell me about the vocational profile/assessment that you use? How long does it take to fill that out? Where do you usually meet with clients when you are working on the assessment? Does the client provide the information for the assessment or do you also get information from other sources? Do you ever find it helpful to get a feel for how someone works before you help the person find a competitive job? For instance, do you ever recommend vocational evaluations, volunteer jobs or other things to help you make an assessment? How do you decide which employers to contact? Which types of jobs? Please tell me about a person on your caseload who is job hunting. What is her/his employment goal? How did the two of you come up with that? How are you going about looking for a job? OK, now imagine that person got offered a job and will start work in a couple of days. What types of supports might you provide? Why those supports? When would first contact the person? How often do you think you might meet in person? I heard that you keep logs of employer contacts. If a client went out and put in an application independently, would you record that on the log? If a person is referred to you, are you the person from the employment program who would meet with the person for the very first time? Where do you typically meet people for the intake appointment? Describe the purpose of the first appointment what are you trying to accomplish? What would you do if someone missed the appointment? For the people on your caseload, who conducts the vocational profile? The job search activities? On-the-job training, if that is needed? Follow along supports? How do clients get information about benefits and working? Who provides the information. How many of the people on your caseload get benefit planning? How do you keep track of which people have engaged in benefit planning and which haven t? Do people ever meet with the benefit planner after they ve been working a while? 4
Do you have many clients who are open with VR? How do you decide whether or not to refer someone to VR? How do you communicate with VR so that you are both on the same page? How often do you communicate with VR? How long might you provide job supports to someone who is working? (If the specialist says that clients are eventually transferred to case managers, Do you bring up the idea of the transfer in a mental health team meeting first, or does the supported employment team make the decision? ) Do most of the people on your caseload choose to participate in job supports of any kind? What do you do if you have a great job lead but no client that wants that job? How do you keep track of the employers that you contact? Do you ever run into the situation that it takes someone a while to find a job and then after a short while they tell you that they don t like the job? How do you handle those situations? How many teams are at your agency? How many of those teams do you work with? Do you get referrals from any other sources for example, do you work with people who don t get mental health services at this agency? Do you go to any mental health treatment team meetings? How often? Do you generally stay for the whole meeting or just part of the meeting? What is the purpose in attending the meetings? Do you have the sense that medication prescribers (psychiatrists, nurse practitioners) at this agency are interested in work? How do you communicate with them? Is that an effective way to collaborate with them? Do you happen to know how many people with serious mental illness at this agency are employed? Did you have an opportunity to see the last fidelity report? Do you have meetings with the other employment specialists at this agency? How often? Do you ever help out another employment specialist by meeting with one of her supported employment clients? For instance, help out with job leads or covering some job coaching? What would you do if someone started missing appointments with you? What would you do next? 5
Do you and your supervisor set goals together? For instance, goals to increase employer contacts or to try new strategies around job development? Sample questions for the supported employment team leader: Do you have a wait list for the program? About how long do people wait to get services? Tell me about the relationship with VR. Are there any practices in place that help facilitate good communication with VR? Is your VR office unwilling to work with any of the people in the IPS supported employment program, for instance, people who abuse substances or people who have lost jobs. If that s an issue, please tell me how your program serves those people. Does the VR office ever use practices that are not in keeping with supported employment? For example, authorizing other agencies to provide the vocational services or sending people for vocational testing? How did you use the last fidelity report? Did you work on an action plan? Who helped you implement the recommendations? Do the employment specialists in this program track their employer contacts? What happens with their contact logs? How often do you receive the logs? (Could I see their logs for the past month?) How do you provide training to the employment specialists? Do you ever go into the field with them? If so, what types of activities do you conduct with them? How often? How do you conduct field mentoring what happens when you go out with someone? How often do you provide individual supervision for employment specialists? Group supervision, for example, vocational unit meetings? Please describe a vocational unit meeting. In addition to supervising the supported employment team, what other responsibilities do you have at this agency? 6
Can you tell me about the outcomes that you collect? Do you have goals related to outcomes? Do the employment specialists have individual goals? When/how do you review those goals? How many people with severe mental illness are employed at this agency? Do people who are working have opportunities to share their back to work stories with others? Please describe. What steps have been taken to promote work throughout the agency? What does the executive director think about supported employment? Is employment important to the agency? Do you remember a time when the executive director spoke about his/her support for supported employment (or wrote about competitive jobs)? When was that? Were most of the people who work for the agency present (or did they all have access to the article)? Do you have a steering committee or leadership meeting for supported employment? Who participates in the meetings? What has been the focus of the meetings over the past 6 months? How often does the group meet? How are things going with the case managers/therapists/counselors do they seem to be promoting employment? What types of interactions do you have with the mental health practitioners at this agency? Do you ever coordinate services by working with other supervisors? How does this happen? How many mental health teams are there? Are employment specialists assigned to teams? Please describe. Do you encourage them to attend mental health treatment teams? Do you facilitate meetings with the employment specialists? How often? What kinds of things do you do in the meetings? Does the program have guidelines for providing supports around a brand new job? The first day, the first month Does the program have guidelines for missed appointments? What would you advise an employment specialist to do if he reported that someone had started missing appointments? 7
Sample questions for the executive team (i.e., executive director, medical director, QA director, fiscal director, HR director, chief operating officer, clinical director ) Please describe the supported employment program. What changes have you made in order to have better fidelity to IPS supported employment? Is there a fidelity action plan a written plan to improve fidelity? How do you promote employment throughout the agency? (To the executive director): Have there been opportunities for you to talk to agency staff about supported employment? For instance, all agency meetings or other events? How do you share your values regarding the evidence-based practice? Is fidelity part of the QA process? For example, does the QA process monitor fidelity scores over time? Does the QA process monitor any other elements related to the supported employment program? For example, number of people who find jobs, average number of days to find employment Does the agency intake process include questions about current employment, interest in employment, interest in education? Of the people with severe mental illness who are served by this agency, how many are employed? How often do you measure this? How is the information gathered? Do you have a steering committee or leadership meeting for supported employment? Who participates in the meetings? What has been the focus of the meetings over the past 6 months? How often does the group meet? How does the supported employment supervisor share information about the program with this executive team? Have there been issues with which the executive team was able to help out? Is the supported employment program able to serve most of the people who want to work at your agency? How is the relationship between VR and your agency? Has the executive team been able to help build a stronger relationship? Are working people encouraged to share their stories with other clients and practitioners at the agency? How does that happen? 8
Sample questions for supported employment clients Please tell me how long you have been working with an employment specialist? What type of job are you looking for? How did you decide on that type of job? When did you first start thinking about getting a job? What triggered your interest in work? When you first began to think about work, did you talk to anyone about that? What did they say? Did anyone ever tell you that you had to be sober to work? That you had to take all of your medications or dress better to get a referral to supported employment? How did you find out about supported employment? When you met with an employment specialist, about how long did it take before you (and/or the employment specialist) began applying for jobs or talking to employers? Does your employment specialist help you talk to employers? How do you feel about that? How did you decide whether or not to have the employment specialist talk to employers? How did you get information about what would happen to your benefits if you went to work? Did you just have a discussion or did you also get some written information? Was the written information tailored to your situation, or was it general information? Where do you usually meet with your employment specialist? (If working): How does your employment specialist help you with your job? What kind of supports? Are those the kind of supports that you need? Have you ever been in the situation where you didn t like your job? What did your employment specialist or case manager say about that? What does your psychiatrist think about your employment goals? 9
Sample questions for family members Please tell me about the services that your family member has received from the supported employment program. How did you first hear about supported employment? Do you think that your family member was encouraged to work when s/he expressed interest in a job? In your opinion, is the job that your family member is looking for (or working at) a good fit? Where does your family member usually meet with the employment specialist? Have you had an opportunity to be involved in the employment planning? In what ways? Is your family member also working with VR? What types of services does VR provide? Sample questions for VR counselors information will be used? Please tell me about the supported employment program. How is it different from the other vocational programs that you work with? Are you the only VR counselor working with this program or are there others? How is the system set up for you to have good integration with the IPS supported employment program? How do you manage to problem-solve together and share information? What might happen if you and an employment specialist had different ideas about a client? How would you come to an agreement? Are you able to serve most of the clients referred by the supported employment program? Which clients might you not serve? 10
Are you able to help with multiple job placements? Do you participate in the supported employment steering committee/leadership committee? If so, how have you been able to help with implementation? Have you ever had an opportunity to participate in a mental health treatment team meeting (a meeting with the case managers/therapists, mental health supervisor, employment specialist, etc.)? How do people in the supported employment program receive benefits information? Does it seem to be comprehensive and helpful to clients? Do you ever attend IPS supported employment unit meetings? If so, when were you last able to do that? Supported employment promotes the idea of on-the-job assessments, but VR sometimes uses situational assessments or other types of evaluations. Has this been a conflict for you? Are you involved in job development activities? In what way? Sample questions for benefits planners/work incentives counselors How do you receive referrals for benefits planning? Where do you meet with people? How do you learn about all of the sources of income that a person (or a person s family) might receive? When you meet with people, do you explain the rules for earned income? Do you also provide some bottom line information for how a person s total monthly income would be affected by working (for instance, if you earn $700/month then )? Do you ever meet with the same person more than once? What would precipitate multiple meetings? Generally, how long does it take from the time you hear about someone who want to meet, until the time that you are able to meet with the person? How did you receive your training? Have you ever participated in training that covered benefits other than SSA? For instance, could you work with someone who had VA benefits, or who had a spouse who received benefits? 11