To Örebro University

The overall aim of this thesis is to discover, to value and to explain, if and why Supported Employment functions in a Swedish context and to also highlight those mechanisms which provide meaningful conditions within that context, when a person with a disability reaches, procures and retains employment. The empirical part consists of four studies that examine (1) whether SE has an effect on the employment rate, disposable income and sum of allowances, (2) the employer´s perspective of employing people with disabilities, (3) how employers perceive support from SE in the employment process and (4) how employees with disabilities perceive their work situation and social inclusion in the workplace. The studies within the thesis show that in a Swedish context, SE is encompassed by norm structures, production structures and economical structures which affect conditions for people with disabilities to reach, procure and retain employment. Supported Employment’s mode of practice and the ability to meet, co-exist and co-operate with these social structures has, in many ways, affected the prerequisites for people with disabilities to reach employment. These structures do not in themselves however, constitute a sufficient frame of ideas to enable an understanding of how SE works in a Swedish context, or how to explain the factors that affect conditions when people with disabilities reach, procure and retain employment. In the qualitative studies, trust features prominently and is considered an important mechanism in holding the process together.