Four studies report on outcomes for long-term unemployed individuals who attend
occupational skills/personal development training courses in Australia. Levels of
distress, depression, guilt, anger, helplessness, positive and negative affect, life
satisfaction and self esteem were used as measures of well-being. Employment
value, employment expectations and employment commitment were used as
measures of work attitude. Social support, financial strain, and use of community
resources were used as measures of life situation. Other variables investigated were
causal attribution, unemployment blame, levels of coping, self efficacy, the
personality variable of neuroticism, the psycho-social climate of the training course,
and changes to occupational status. Training courses were (a) government funded
occupational skills-based programs which included some components of personal
development training, and (b) a specially developed course which focused
exclusively on improving well-being, and which utilised the cognitive-behavioural
therapy (CBT) approach. Data for all studies were collected longitudinally by
having subjects complete questionnaires pre-course, post-course, and (for 3 of the 4
studies) at 3 months follow-up, in order to investigate long-term effects. One of the
studies utilised the case-study methodology and was designed to be illustrative and
assist in interpreting the quantitative data from the other 3 evaluations. The
outcomes for participants were contrasted with control subjects who met the same
sel~tion criteria for training. Results confirmed earlier findings that the experiences
of unemployment were negative. Immediate effects of the courses were to improve
well-being. Improvements were greater for those who attended courses with higher
levels of personal development input, and the best results were obtained from the
specially developed CBT program. Participants who had lower levels of well-being
at the beginning of the courses did better as a result of training than those who were
already functioning at higher levels. Course participants gained only marginal
advantages over control subjects in relation to improving their occupational status.
Many of the short term well-being gains made as a result of attending the courses
were still evident at 3 months follow-up. Best results were achieved for the specially
designed CBT program. Results were discussed in the context of prevailing theories
of Ynemployment (Fryer, 1986,1988; Jahoda, 1981, 1982; Warr, 1987a, 1987b)
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