Process of supporting the development of skills necessary so that people with mental disabilities can be employed: Employment transition support staff

Abstract

With the recent rapid increase in implementation of the requirement that companies employ people with mental disabilities, training Employment Transition Support (ETS) service staff has become a problem, particularly because employment skills needed by workers and intervention strategies needed to support their learning of these skills, especially in relation to the bridging period from support by medical and welfare staff to support in the workplace, are unknown. The present study aimed to identify processes by which people with mental disabilities acquire skills necessary for work, and processes that staff use to support them. The participants, 18 Employment Transition Support staff, were interviewed; the interviews were analyzed qualitatively. The analysis generated 55 concepts, 4 core categories (finding working skill gaps → teaching the procedures; finding social skill gaps → analysis of workers' skills → attending to workers' social experiences; finding cognitive skill gaps → doing a self-analysis → half-objecting after accepting claims; finding skills related to independence → collaboration with others), 19 categories, and 2 subcategories. The process of supporting worker skill development by the Employment Transition Support staff was not simply one way from top to bottom, in the way that skilled trainers provide instruction in necessary skills.Rather, it was a reciprocal and cyclic process in which both the workers' employment-related skills and the staff's support skills developed as staff and workers continued to interact.Different interventions appear to be necessary for the development of different skills.Staff members' psychological factors seem to influence the development of their intervention skills.