Department of Occupational Therapy, School of Allied Health, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Asia Pac Psychiatry. 2014 Jun;6(2):115-9. doi: 10.1111/appy.12091. Epub 2013 Jun 25.
Education is recognized in many sectors of society as essential for empowerment and better lives, and postsecondary education is increasingly a prerequisite for many occupations. Given its onset in late adolescence and early adulthood, mental illness frequently disrupts secondary or tertiary education, and resulting lower educational attainment contributes to reduced lifetime employment and earning potential. Yet, supporting people with mental illnesses to pursue postsecondary education offers pathways to vocational qualifications and more diverse opportunities for employment and career advancement. While substantial efforts have been made to develop evidence-based interventions to improve employment outcomes for people with mental ill health, less is known about the best ways to enable people with mental illness to successfully return to study and to pursue their educational goals. This paper briefly discusses supported education, an approach designed to provide pathways and supports for reengagement in education; it highlights the potential of modeling educational support on Individual Placement and Support principles used in supported employment programs; and calls for greater efforts in research and practice to enable youth or adults with mental illness to reengage in education so as to improve their educational outcomes and career prospects.
教育在社会的许多领域都被认为是赋权和改善生活的必要条件，而高等教育越来越成为许多职业的先决条件。由于精神疾病通常在青少年后期和成年早期发作，因此它经常会中断中等或高等教育，而由此导致的受教育程度降低会降低终生的就业和收入潜力。然而，支持患有精神疾病的人接受高等教育为他们获得职业资格和更多样化的就业和职业发展机会提供了途径。虽然已经做出了很大努力来开发基于证据的干预措施，以改善精神健康状况不佳的人的就业结果，但对于如何使精神病患者成功地重返学习并实现其教育目标，人们知之甚少。本文简要讨论了支持性教育，这是一种旨在为重新接受教育提供途径和支持的方法；它强调了在支持性就业计划中使用的个人安置和支持原则对教育支持进行建模的潜力；并呼吁在研究和实践中加大力度，使患有精神疾病的青年或成年人能够重新接受教育，从而提高他们的教育成果和职业前景。
