Community-Based Models Of Employment ServicesFor People With Psychiatric Disabilities Linda Toms Barker Linda Toms Barker is Principal Investigator at Berkeley Planning Associates. Over the last ten years, Berkeley Planning Associates has conducted research into employment alternatives for people with disabilities. Three projects in particular have offered the opportunity to examine different approaches to providing community-based employment services for persons with psychiatric disabilities. The first of these was an effort to assist the funding agencies and service providers in Marin County, California, to develop a comprehensive coordinated county-wide system of vocational services for persons labeled chronically mentally ill (Collignon, Noble, and Toms Barker, 1987). More recently, we are researching “optimum models” of supported employment for this population and the role of “case management” in the vocational rehabilitation of persons with psychiatric disabilities for NIDRR. This work has not identified the “best models” of community-based employment services, but rather has allowed us to identify many of the characteristics of successful programs and raised many questions about the best way to go about developing and refining services in the future. This paper raises some of those questions for researchers, advocates and policy makers, and offers some recommended criteria for use in developing community service strategies. This is done by examining each of the key concepts in the title of the paper. WHAT IS MENTAL ILLNESS? There are many labels in the literature that are given to individuals who have been diagnosed as having a mental illness and/or who have been served through the mental health services system, including: “mental health system survivors,” “community mental health clients,” “consumers of mental health services,” “mentally ill persons,” “mentally restored,” “rehabilitated mentally ill,” “psychiatrically maladjusted,” “ex-mental patients,” This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.