Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of the IPS
model have provided evidence to substantiate SE as
an EBP. Bond [10] examined data from four studies of
the conversion from day treatment program to SE and
nine RCTs comparing SE to a variety of alternative
approaches. The four conversion studies represented
six conversion sites with 317 consumers in supported
employment and three comparison sites with 184 consumers
in day treatment. Bond reported an average
threefold increase in employment rate (from 12 percent
to 38 percent) for the conversion group and virtually
no change for the day treatment group (from 13 percent
to 15 percent) between the pre-post time periods of
the studies. For the RCTs, relatively new SE programs
were compared to traditional vocational services. The
RCTs demonstrate a 20 percent to 40 percent increase
in the competitive employment rate when using SE services
versus other vocational programs. The average
employment rate for consumers with mental illness in
SE was 56 percent and 19 percent in traditional vocational
programs. Bond reported a large effect size of
0.85 by weighing each study equally. Moreover, SEwas
also found to be effective for consumers from racial and
ethnic minority backgrounds [10].