What effect does self-direction have on functional outcomes like housing and employment?
To find out, HSRI researchers and colleagues, including the NRCPDS Founding Director, Kevin J. Mahoney, looked at approximately four years’ worth of data from the nation’s largest and longest-standing self-direction effort: FloridaSDC.
An HSRI Research Brief summarizes the results of the new research. The study – conducted by a team from HSRI, Boston College, and other local universities – looked into outcomes of housing independence and employment between individuals who participated in self-direction and those who did not.
Compared with nonparticipants, self-directing participants were more likely to improve, or maintain at high levels, engagement in paid work and independent housing.
The study, published online in the journal Psychiatric Services, is part of a Demonstration and Evaluation of Self-Direction in Mental Health study that explores mental health self-direction in six states, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the New York State Health Foundation with support from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.