Working for stability

Being employed plays major
role in mental stability

by Frank Moinar

People look at me oddly when I tell them I have four jobs, five if you consider my role as a parent twice a week. Luckily, I don't see the latter as being a job. The time spent with my son is sometimes trying but never work in the literal sense. I wonder what they'd day if I told them I also have a mental illness. The fact that I'm holding down four jobs is not shocking to those who know me. Good time management skills and a commitment to priorities allow me to enjoy Mondays and Tuesdays with my son and work up to thirty hours the rest of the week. Of course, the constant juggling does take it's toll. I've spent more than one weekend with only twelve hours of sleep while trying to squeeze in thirty hours of work between Friday morning and Sunday evening. My cherished companion through such trials is a tube of A-535 rub!  Believe me, the lower back is the first place to smart with age.

Lost in the rush of words above is the fact that I have a mental illness. This is the reason I am writing this article. I feel one can only be informed on a topic for so long before the impetus to write takes over. I've spent much of my free time lately learning as much as possible about work programs, sponsor groups and initiatives for people with mental illness. I've listened to the tremulous excuses of many survivors regarding the barricades to employment. I've also swallowed vials of information from the professionals in the psychiatric field explaining what constitutes and motivates a "positive return to work outcome". I have talked to people in the employment field who want everything and/or nothing to do with creating and retaining jobs for ex-mental patients. With minimal prejudice, and a slight bias, I've listened and analyzed the situation until I felt the time was ripe to state my piece.

I have been able to identify a shift in the patterns or paradigms affecting the entry, re-entry and job retention of people labeled with mental illnesses. A quick overview of these changes include:

1. Recognition of the need for coordinated efforts in both the public and non-profit sector.
2. An influx of innovative projects in the public and not-profit sector that offers intensive services tailor made to suit their workers
3. A decreased importance of the role psychiatrists play in determining a person's decision to return to work

Programs like THE O.B.C., Coast's PACT Employment Service, IAM Cares and Gastown Vocational are shifting the paradigm for the better. These are programs that provide comprehensive and all-inclusive training, education and employment to their 'job ready' participants. The high success rate of these associations is based on their commitment to personal and environmental growth and a health acceptance of change.

In the field of self employment or consumer run businesses, one need to look no further than the Ontario Council of Alternative Business (OCAB), BC's "Consumer run Business Development Project", run by the CMHA or the Carlton University CEDTAP Program with Women Futures.

At the policy level, however, multi-tiered responsibilities, departmental strife, opposing philosophies and endless accountability campaigns hinder rather than facilitate a dire need for coordination. Fragmentation serves to minimize effectiveness and squander precious funds. Innovative employment project ideas are scraped in favor of cost effective duds. At times there is confusion about whether a program is an employment or pre-employment program. There should be a more clear definition between pre-employment training programs and those that actually help people develop specific employable skills.

The work place is undergoing vast structural changes, which affect everyone. Company down sizing and the casualization of labor make those who have jobs fearful of losing them. However, mainstream HRDC Programs like the Job Partnership Program, Workplace Based Employment and Destinations are excellent work initiative programs that are open to all workers, regardless of whether or not they have a disability.

I hope that some of the changes will override the dated attitudes that have created a stigma where none should exist. People do recover from major mental illnesses and go back to work. Work is an important part of all of our lives as it allows us to play an integral part in the community. It provides an escape from emotional turmoil and satisfies our inborn need for order, respect and stability.