IPS, at its core, is a psychiatric rehabilitation service with a more singular focus on competitive employment as an immediate and obtainable goal. To be successful, there is close integration and coordination across behavioral health and employment professionals. Siloed services doesn’t work, a finding influencing transformation across many areas of care.

Integrating IPS employment services within behavioral health shifts the culture of the mental health workforce as they come to value competitive employment as a critical part of many people’s recovery. Integrating behavioral health services within IPS, as an employment service, produces a more effective model of care. IPS team members, by way of their own mental health training and close access to mental health providers as consultants, are clinically more adept at their assessment practice and in the individualized supports they provide to people.

High fidelity to the IPS model is shown by documentation of close interaction between employment specialists and behavioral health professions at weekly treatment team meetings for persons who have already expressed an interest in employment.