A case report of the conversion of sheltered employment to evidence-based supported employment in Canada.

This case report describes the transformation of a sheltered workshop program to a program that provides evidence-based supported employment services in partnership with five community treatment teams. Over a 15-year period, a Canadian nonprofit agency that provides employment services for persons with severe mental illness made a series of programmatic changes to increase the effectiveness of the services. The agency initially modified its facility-based sheltered workshop to include a prevocationally oriented work preparation program, later added brokered supported employment services, and finally completely transformed its organization by relocating its vocational rehabilitation counselors to five community mental health teams, in order to implement an evidence-based supported employment program that is based on the individual placement and support model.