Add-ons

There are a number of additional interventions and methods available to clients that in combination with IPS will strengthen its effectiveness and provide support. They can be offered by the treatment team, by recovery academies, or other client initiatives. How one feels and how one is confident with his illness or her illness is for him or her to decide, not someone else.

Cognitive skills training

With cognitive skills training (also known as cognitive remediation), specific cognitive brain functions can be practiced. One example is the CIRCuiTS programme, a computer program with exercises.
Skills that can be trained in this way are memory, attention and switching between various subjects. These are skills that clients need in everyday life. To ensure the training is successful, it is important to continue practicing at home. The training is given by a therapist.

To tell or not to tell at work?

Are you wondering if you should tell your current employer or colleagues that you have a mental illness? Should you tell a potential employer at a job interview? The brochure Conceal or Reveal can help you to make a good choice.
This brochure gives you a number of tasks to do. You mark the arguments both for and against openness that most apply to you and you determine the values and needs that are important to you and those which are less important. The information and tasks in the brochure also help you to think in general about who to tell about your mental illness, and also about how to tell them.

The brochure CORAL: Conceal or Reveal, written by Dr Claire Henderson of King’s College, London contains information that is based on a literature study and interviews with people who have a mental illness to help them decide if they want to be open about it at work, and if so, how to go about it.

Wellness Recovery Action Plan (WRAP)

WRAP (Wellness Recovery Action Plan) is a self-help method that supports people in their recovery, no matter what their diagnosis is. WRAP offers the user a ‘toolbox’ to help them to feel better. Research on WRAP in the USA has shown it has positive results on important aspects of recovery. In the Netherlands, research into the combination of WRAP and IPS has been carried out. It shows that WRAP can really help clients to gain insight into their needs and their goals in respect of employment.

WRAP training comprises eight sessions of 2.5 hours each. At these sessions, together with two peer specialists who have been trained as WRAP facilitators, participants start to develop their own WRAP. They make plans of action and add appropriate ‘tools’ to them such as daily maintenance, triggers, early warning signs, signs of going wrong, what to do in a crisis and afterwards. All action plans answer the main question ‘What do I need and when do I need it in order to make me feel good or make me feel better?’ The exchange of ideas and finding recognition and mutual understanding within a group contributes to re-discovering your own possibilities.

WRAP training is offered by mental health care agencies, client initiatives and recovery academies.

Adaptations at work

Sometimes it is necessary to make adaptions at work so that someone who is mentally vulnerable can work better. It is easier for both employer and employee to make these adaptations if someone’s vulnerability can be discussed openly. It is essential that this happens without it leading to stigmatisation. Samen Sterk zonder Stigma  has workplace ambassadors that support businesses in making mental illness discussable and helping them to make a work plan for this.