Social Network for RSA Fellows
Mental health, employment - social enterprise challenges
*cross posted from Mental health and wellbeing network*
Hello all,
I'm senior researcher on the Social Brain project here at the RSA. Julian Thompson (director of enterprise) and I are looking into how the RSA might take a fresh look at the issues relating to mental health and employment.
Please have a look at my blog to read about some of the challenges we're interested in addressing.
We're pretty sure that with the expertise, creativity and energy of RSA fellows, we can play a role in shaping a better approach to helping people recover from mental illness through work, shifting attitudes to employing people with experience of mental illness and responding to their needs in the workplace.
Is there potential for a radically different approach to helping people with mental health problems off benefits and into work? How might the kind of changes needed in workplace culture to sustain this come about? How can personal stories of recovery be 'activated' to change the kind of perspective which results in only 40% of employers being prepared to consider taking on staff with mental health problems? Should these issues be tackled top-down or bottom-up or both, and where's the money to do it? What experience/ ideas/ skills do you have? Do you have an appetite for working with us on this?
Views: 70
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Marilyn Hyndman on -
An interesting but difficult area to research. You might look at active citizenship as a possible way back into work. We run a volunteering scheme as part of our activities and it has been helpful for a number of people, regardless of circumstances, to get back into employment. However, I would say that there is little to no financial support for those providing such schemes, the idea still persists that because people volunteer it does not cost anything! A similar perception exists with trainees in that the state believes that giving a company a free trainee is beneficial to the company. They may be once trained and if the company has the resources to employ them. Also, it probably depends on the type of work they are being trained or are volunteering for. In digital media, which is what we do, it is expensive because each volunteer or trainee requires their own equipment - cameras, computers etc - and the skills to use that equipment....no allowance is made for this. I think that if there were some allowances made then we would take more people on ourselves, it helps to spread the financial risk involved.
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Permalink Reply by Emma Lindley on -
Thanks very much for that Marilyn - it's exactly these sorts of challenges that I think it's important to understand better.
What I'm hoping for is that we'll be able to draw together expertise from across the RSA to develop a project which engages with the issue(s) of mental health and employment from a multi-disciplinary platform.
In the first instance, the idea is to get a group of interested/ experienced fellows together (probably 10-15) for an initial scoping discussion. Is this something you might be interested in being part of?
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Permalink Reply by Adrian Ashton on -
as well as my own experinces of working in this field over the last decade or so, if you're not already aware of them, some great resources and case studies, etc relating to this issue that have already been developd ...
video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AduAsnWMjE&feature=plcp&con...
report - http://www.mhpf.org.uk/information-centre/publications/better-menta...
sector network (with lots of resources) - http://socialfirmsuk.co.uk/
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Permalink Reply by Geof Cox on -
The miEnterprise project offers a radically different approach to helping people with mental health problems off benefits and into work - supported self-employment - using a mutual self-help 'enterprise circle' methodology backed by new technology which provides everything from social networking to enterprise resource management tools in an online 'collaborative community'.
Do contact me if this sounds interesting -
geof@geofcox.info
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Permalink Reply by Marilyn Hyndman on
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I would be happy to help out.
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Permalink Reply by Anthony Eldridge Rogers on -
Hello Geof,
I work in the field of recovery from addiction etc. We train recovery coaches. Your miEnterprise sounds very interesting. Can we connect or can you point me somewhere to learn more?
Geof Cox said:The miEnterprise project offers a radically different approach to helping people with mental health problems off benefits and into work - supported self-employment - using a mutual self-help 'enterprise circle' methodology backed by new technology which provides everything from social networking to enterprise resource management tools in an online 'collaborative community'.
Do contact me if this sounds interesting -
geof@geofcox.info
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