HYPE Values & Principles
HYPE is an intentional service that brings together supports for education and employment in order to help young adults with mental health conditions develop careers that support an adult lifestyle. The following HYPE values shape the services provided by HYPE practitioners.
Values: The Behavioral Compass
- Flexible: practitioner’s support is adapted and provided in ways that meet the unique needs of each young adult in services.
- Helpful: practitioners anticipate common barriers that disrupt educational and employment success and work with the young adult proactively to develop skills and resources in order to prevent disruption.
- Solution-focused: practitioners work to creatively resolve practical, everyday issues in order to maintain positive movement toward the young person’s goal.
- Partnering: practitioners collaborate with each young adult to understand their circumstances and goals in order to overcome barriers and support sound decision-making.
- Age-typical: practitioners support the developmentally normative pathways and choices that are common for most young adults (with and without mental health conditions).
HYPE's Principles direct the activities of the HYPE Practitioner.
Principles: The Set of Directions
1. Career-oriented Services
HYPE services assist young adults to explore, pursue, and achieve education and employment goals that will lead to a desired careers and financial self-sufficiency. HYPE services emphasize education goals that further career development.
2. Cultivation of Identity of Worker & Student
HYPE services develop resiliency and skills of young adults to create and reinforce the identity and role of worker and student. HYPE works with family members and mental health providers to ensure consistent messages and supports are provided in order to prevent the creation of “disability identity.”
3. Informed Decision Making
HYPE services assist young adults in selecting and pursuing vocational goals that are consistent with their personal preferences, values, and interests by providing factual information and detailed alternatives to allow them to weigh the long- and short-term costs, risks, and benefits of potential career pathways.
4. Service Eligibility Based on Choice
HYPE services accepts all young adults who express any level of interest in exploring or pursuing education and/or employment. Young people are not excluded on the basis of diagnoses, symptoms, substance use history, psychiatric hospitalizations, homelessness, level of disability, or legal system involvement.
5. Purposeful Service Coordination
HYPE practitioners work closely with services and supports utilized by the young adult. Given the various services young adults may be involved with (both within and outside of community mental health) concerted effort is dedicated to coordinate services.
6. Attention to Preferences
HYPE services are based on the young adult’s values and choices and assist in continuous exploration of additional preferences and interests.
7. Personalized Financial Planning
HYPE services assist young adults in understanding the impact of financial decisions on long-term self-sufficiency. HYPE services see application to SSA as a last resort and helps the young person to access other types of financial support. HYPE helps young adults develop an “exit plan” if receiving government benefits.
8. Rapid Goal Pursuit
HYPE services work quickly to help the young adults enter into their desired setting. Practitioners do not delay pursuit or entrance into either employment or education, but works intentionally to overcome barriers to entrance as well as develop skills and resources while concurrently pursuing a young adult’s goal.
9. Systematic Resource Development
HYPE services identify and link young people to naturally occurring supports and services within their communities to support the entrance into and maintenance of employment and education.
10. Systematic Job Development
HYPE practitioners systematically visit employers, who are selected based on the young adult’s preferences, to learn about their business needs and hiring preferences. The long- and short-term costs, risks, and benefits of disclosure are discussed prior to job development. HYPE does not disclose the mental health condition unless it is preferred by the young adult.
11. Time-Unlimited and Individualized Support
HYPE supports are individualized and continue for as long as the young adult wants and needs the support.