In this talk we will present results from an innovative randomized controlled trial (RCT) based on collaboration between healthcare and employment services. The RCT explored the effect of combined manualized group-based cognitive rehabilitation (10 sessions) and supported employment (six months) in real-life competitive work settings for patients with mild-to-moderate traumatic brain injury (TBI) who had not returned to work 8 – 12 weeks post-injury. The main findings demonstrate that the combined intervention might aid patients after TBI in a speedier return to work (RTW) and gives support to the notion that targeted early intervention programs might be cost-effective considering costs related to informal care and productivity loss. The findings are of relevance to other patient groups in which cognitive symptoms complicate work participation. The study illustrates the potential usefulness of implementing supported employment in rehabilitation programs for patients with acquired brain injuries, and the trial can serve as a benchmark study regarding the efficacy of combining cognitive rehabilitation and supported employment efforts.

Dr. Nada Andelic (MD, PhD) is a specialist in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and head of Research and Development at the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Oslo University Hospital, and a Professor at the CHARM - Research Centre for Habilitation and Rehabilitation Models and Services, Institute of Health and Society, University of Oslo. Her main research areas are epidemiology and risk factors of traumatic brain injury (TBI) and multiple traumas, short and long-term functional outcomes and health-related quality of life, health-care services, rehabilitation trajectories, complex interventions, and cost-effectiveness of rehabilitation. She has numerous peer-reviewed research articles and serves as peer reviewer for numbers of international journals and Research Granting Agencies worldwide.

https://www.med.uio.no/helsam/personer/vit/nadaan/index.html

https://wo.cristin.no/as/WebObjects/cristin.woa/wa/fres?sort=ar&pnr=12773&la=no&action=sok

Marianne Løvstad

Marianne Løvstad is a clinical neuropsychologist. She has worked in the field of brain injury rehabilitation since 2000. She currently holds the position as head psychologist at Sunnaas rehabilitation hospital. She leads the Research group for acquired brain injuries at Sunnaas and is Professor at the Department of Psychology at the University of Oslo. Marianne was president of the Norwegian Neuropsychological Society 2012-2016. She has a particular research interest within the field of frontal lobe function, neuropsychology and cognitive rehabilitation.

https://www.sv.uio.no/psi/personer/vit/mlovstad/index.html

https://app.cristin.no/persons/show.jsf?id=8073

DFN Project SEARCH is a highly ambitious Transition to Employment programme for learners with special educational needs and disabilities. Partnering with hundreds of national and international companies, education providers and local government bodies across the UK, DFN Project SEARCH delivers a fully immersive Supported Internship programme with the primary focus of supporting this cohort into full-time, integrated, competitive paid employment. 70% of interns secure paid employment each year, 60% achieve full-time paid employment, over 10 times the national average.

With the largest data set of this kind in the world, we can evidence how neurodiversity can be a huge advantage to businesses and the wider economy, and how given the right support, people with an array of skill sets can become fully contributing members of society. Through this presentation we will take a deep dive into the gender, race, age, and primary diagnosis of these interns and compare this against their outcomes in terms of salary, employment contracts and sectors they start their careers in.

Chief Executive Officer of the DFN Foundation and DFN Project SEARCH, Claire is an experienced senior leader with an extensive background in education and best practice supported employment. Formally a headteacher of a broad-spectrum special school, Claire now leads a fast-growing charity that seeks to support best practice transition to employment for people with learning disabilities and autism.

The methods and the philosophy of supported employment and person-centred planning are for me like twins. They share the same DNA of basic attitudes and the goal of inclusion, belong together, live their own lives and have fun when they meet each other.

Personal Future Planning is used in Germany as the general term of the wide range of person-centred planning approaches, which we use to create an enabling space with a person to think about his or her values, motivation, interests, skills, strengths, and knowledge, to explore dreams and clarify personal goals. We see this as a part of a positive diagnosis as the positive psychology calls it. We explore what makes him or her stronger, how he or she communicates and what environment and support fits best. A circle of support is a good element in the transition to a new position. The question to explore is what fits to the person because all people have different combinations of their personal needs, competencies, and values. Person-, community- and relationship-orientation are three sides of one coin and a strategy for helpful services for vocational integration and social inclusion.

In the past 30 years, we discovered a wide range of material that is very helpful in the career planning for all. The research in the field of positive psychology in the recent years undermines the importance of a strengths and value-based approach. In this keynote speech I want to look ahead and share my learning on this journey and give examples of what I find helpful.

He studied social work, social science, vocational education, special education and rehabilitation in Hamburg, Bremen and Eugen, Oregon, USA. In the early 1990s he developed a supported employment project in Hamburg. In 1995 he did his Masters in special education and Rehabilitation with a focus on supported employment. He was the first executive director of the German Association of Supported Employment (BAG ÙB) (1995-2001), was board member of the EUSE and took part in several European Projects on Supported Employment. His dissertation was about the long-term effects of supported employment (2006). Within the two European projects New Path to Inclusions (2009-2011) and New Path to InclUsion Network (2013) an inclusive training in person centred planning was developed. He was one of the founders and the first president of the German speaking network of person centred planning (Netzwerk Persönliche Zukunftsplanung) (2011-2019).

Svein Andre Hofsø will talk about how important a job is for him, his experiences as a disabled person in working life, and his dreams about the future.

Employed by Fønix AS since 2003. Svein Andre is a versatile man, who likes to be in the spotlight, and has a lot of things going on. He has been working as an actor, dancer, presenter, lecturer, and freelance reporter. At Fønix, he has worked with various packaging and assembly assignments, in the laundry shop, in the canteen. He has also been working with housekeeping in hotels, and as a mailman between various law firms and the courthouse in Sandefjord. He has also served as an employee representative in the company’s work environment committee (AMU).

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Health- and welfare services are instructed to closely cooperate in implementing evidence-based practices such as Individual Placement and Support (IPS) in the current National Healthcare plan (2020 - 2023). Clinicians in mental health services are further specifically encouraged to acknowledge work as both an important therapy goal and a therapeutic intervention and Supported Employment/IPS programs receive considerable government funding. Although evidence for the effectiveness of SE/IPS continues to grow and there is broad political commitment to finance access to services, challenges still remain. System-level cooperation between services and stakeholders, the integration of employment specialists in mental health services, rigid fidelity assessments and a broad range of clinical groups constitute potential barriers to the successful implementation of SE/IPS. This keynote presentation will address SE/IPS for people with severe mental illness as well as for new clinical groups, summarizing the major developments in Norway since the first introduction of IPS. Challenges and opportunities will be discussed.

June Lystad is a senior scientist at the Treatment Research Unit and Section for Early Psychosis Treatment at Oslo University Hospital. Her research focus mainly involves different psychosocial interventions for severe mental disorders. The research areas include vocational rehabilitation, neurocognition in schizophrenia, cognitive rehabilitation and cognitive behavioral therapy in psychosis. She is the principal investigator in "IPS +", an ongoing research project combining the IPS model with cognitive remediation and cognitive behavioral therapy for individuals with early psychosis and a research collaborator in different ongoing vocational rehabilitation trials.

This keynote addresses the employers’ perspective on Supported Employment. Mills will present how the DPD Company is solving disability employment and becoming part of the local community through Supported Employment. The audience will be made aware of the opportunities and benefits that Supported Employment will have on people’s lives through this presentation.

The notion of a resonance relationship, as described by the German philosopher Harmut Rosa (2019) sheds an original light on supported employment. If one asks whether supported employment can be characterized by a feature or property that reflects both the beneficial effects of SE, but also one of the primary means of achieving this goal, I will argue that SE has such a central characteristic of restoring and developing resonant relationships, both with the world, with others, and ultimately also with oneself. In contrast to a posture of detachment from the environment and from others, a relationship of resonance translates the experience of an authentic contact with the world, in which the person allows him or herself to be touched or reached by what he or she encounters, but also in which he or she experiences the power to act and to produce an effect on the world.  In this sense, the exercise of a professional activity is one of the important axes of resonance, but the relationship of trust and the working alliance that is built with the employment specialist, and which constitutes one of the main levers of effectiveness of this practice, is typically also a relationship of resonance. This resonant relationship can then be developed with co-workers. Finally, the restoration of a feeling of self-efficacy, self-esteem and self-confidence, made possible by a regular and effective work, contributes to the development of a positive and authentic relationship with oneself.

It is therefore in the light of these resonance relationships fostered by supported employment that we will examine this practice, its sources of effectiveness, and its effects on the life and the future of the people supported.

Bernard  Pachoud

As a researcher, Bernard has contributed to making supported employment known in France, by highlighting the research data that attest to the effectiveness of this approach. He intervenes as a supervisor of a supported employment service, and has conducted, with Marie-Gaëlle Marec, evaluative studies on supported employment in France. His research also focuses on the contribution of philosophy to social and health care practices.

In her keynote speech, Ashley Ryan, Director of ENABLE Works will demonstrate the significant positive impact that may be achieved when supported employment providers, education professionals and industry partners work in close collaboration. She will discuss how innovative approaches and strong partnerships can overcome perceived barriers, offer parity of access to Higher Education and work experience opportunities for disabled young people, and effectively open doors to successful careers. 

Ashley’s speech will showcase of 2 award-winning programmes, giving delegates an overview of inclusive education models delivered at both school and University level. The presentation will present data and case studies demonstrating programme success to date and will make recommendations for replication. The presentation will also briefly touch on the impact of covid, how supported employment and education services responded in Scotland and how we are working to mitigate the long-lasting impact of the pandemic on young people with disabilities.

Ashley Ryan is Director of ENABLE Works, part of the ENABLE Group. ENABLE Works are the largest specialist provider of employability, skills, and training services in Scotland, supporting people with learning disabilities and other barriers to employment to obtain and sustain high quality and rewarding careers.

Since the year of 2012, the Norwegian Public Employment Service has experienced a paradigm shift with increased use of place / train approach within the labour market measures.

In his keynote address, Mr Åsholt will emphasise why this shift was necessary and how the organisation has worked with policy making to accomplish this new paradigm. 

Further he will explain in what ways the PES has succeeded, and what could be the challenges in successfully implementing SE/IPS in the public administration. 

Norway has gained increased knowledge by cooperating with other countries and organisations in this field in the last ten years.