Rehab rounds: Social skills training to help mentally ill persons find and keep a job.

Abstract

Introduction by the column editors: Social skills training as a mode of treatment and rehabilitation of persons who have mental disabilities has been well documented for its efficacy in controlled clinical trials in the United States and in other countries (1). However, only a few attempts have been made to apply social skills training in the context of vocational rehabilitation (2–4). In a recent column, Wallace and colleagues (5) focused on one such effort—a module on workplace fundamentals— and presented data in support of the module’s utility in facilitating the job adjustment of persons who have serious mental illness (5). In this month’s column, Tsang describes a similar program in Hong Kong that is based on the principles of social skills training and that focuses on job search and job tenure for persons with schizophrenia who have a high level of functioning. This program, derived from the “job club” approach of Jacobs and colleagues