A Review of Supported Employment Services for People with Disabilities: Competitive Employment, Earnings, and Service Costs

This study was conducted in order to assess the impact of supported employment services. A systematic search for recent research articles that assessed the value of supported employment services yielded 27 articles that used experimental, causal-comparative, correlational, or descriptive methods. The search terms included combinations of the words supported employment, IPS, DPA, VR, disability, employment, on-the-job supports, natural supports, and fidelity scale. The information from the articles was used to answer three research questions on the topic of supported employment (competitive employment rate, weekly wages, and service costs). Overall, the value and benefit of supported employment services were demonstrated across all research questions.