Transcript Employment and Economic Self Sufficiency

NYAPRS
Len Statham, Employment and Economic Self Sufficiency
Specialist
[email protected]
(585) 490-3979
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A statewide coalition of people who use and/or provide
community mental health recovery services and
supports dedicated to improving services and social
conditions for people with psychiatric disabilities by
promoting their recovery, rehabilitation and rights
Members Services and Technical Assistance
 Grassroots Advocacy E News Regional Forums
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Annual Conference Exec Seminar PROS Academy
Service Transformation
Community and Economic Development
Peer Services
Cultural Competence
website www.nyaprs.org
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Participants will learn how culture drives
outcomes and outcomes drive culture
Participants will recognize the link between
poverty and mental illness
Participants will come away with ten concrete
steps they can implement immediately that
will help them foster a culture of employment
Participants will be introduced to curriculum
that will help move people along the
continuum of Employment and Economic
Self-Sufficiency.
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Welcome & Expectations
Why Employment & Economic SelfSufficiency?
Exercise: What do we want?
“We Can Work DVD”
The Tools
Making Employment Work: Building a culture
that supports work
Evaluations
Being able to provide for
ourselves in order to meet our
essential needs and wants.
When we are self-sufficient, we
are financially independent.
When we have independence we
can pursue the life we want for
ourselves.
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Having control over one’s financial life
Having independence from public programs
Having sufficient earned income
Having assets
Being able to contribute to one’s
communities
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Living with chronic worry or anxiety to meet
one’s basic needs
Residing in neighborhoods where violence and
deteriorating community ties leave individuals in
isolation
Being so afraid of not making it without benefits
that one prefers to stay in the benefits trap
Lacking transportation to take a job or a better
paying job
Lacking the resources or supports to pursue a
new career or advance professionally
Occupational
Financial
Social
Intellectual
Environmental
Emotional
Physical
Spiritual
Increase
self esteem
Positive
opinions
about the
future
Decrease
psychiatric
symptoms
Employment
Increase
social
contacts
Decrease
potential
for relapse
Increase
social
status
Increase
income
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Name 5 things you would like to have in your
life in the next year? 3 years?
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How will you acquire these things?
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Can you do it on a budget of $785 a month?
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The role of life dreams and aspirations in the
pursuit of employment and economic change
– What moves people to do what they do?
– Why people would consider work or becoming more
self-sufficient?
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Key questions:
– What are your life dreams and aspirations?
– How would you like your life to be like in 1 year? in
2 years? In 5 years?
– What would you like to have? What would you like to
be doing? Where would you like to live?
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WE Can Work DVD:
Our Stories of Recovery and
Employment Success
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Lesson 1: Why Is Economic Self-sufficiency Important to
Recovery?
Lesson 2: What Can Providers Do to Support Economic SelfSufficiency?
A recovery-oriented approach to financial wellness
What providers can do to support economic self-sufficiency: An overview
 Engaging individuals through conversations about life dreams
 Assessing readiness to pursue economic self-sufficiency
 Developing readiness to pursue economic self-sufficiency
 Creating a plan towards self-sufficiency
 Developing skills and capital to achieve self-sufficiency
 Linking and referring individuals to economic self-sufficiency services
Lesson 3: Strategies and Tools to Engage, Assess and Develop
Readiness towards Economic Self-Sufficiency
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Provider Guide: Contents
Lesson 4: Strategies and Tools to Create a Plan towards Self-sufficiency
Lesson 5: Strategies and Tools to Develop Skills and Capital to Achieve SelfSufficiency
◦ Module 1: Budgeting
◦ Module 2: Accessing work incentives to increase earned income
◦ Module 3: Filing taxes
◦ Module 4: Saving
◦ Module 5: Clearing and building credit
◦ Module 6: Dealing with predatory lending
◦ Module 7: Getting help with addictions and financial stressors
◦ Module 8: Increasing social capital
Lesson 6: Strategies and Tools to Increase Access to Economic Self-sufficiency
Services
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Outcomes drive Culture
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Zero Exclusion
Application process for job development
or volunteer positions
Performance Reviews
Time off request
Job Board
Achievement Board
Weekly / Monthly Forums
Workshops
Integrated team – Everyone is on the
employment team.
 Everyone supports economic selfsufficiency.
 Support recovery and work oriented
culture
 Look for job leads
 Training
 Jobs are celebrated milestones
 Employment discussed at every staff
meeting.
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“No one ever talked to me
about work.”
“I experienced that work
was helpful in managing my
symptoms.”
“Work gave me the
confidence that I can do
anything that I put my mind
to.”
“Has help me to be a better
person knowing that I am
needed somewhere.”
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Employment time vs. Human service time.
Visits to employers using the 3 Cups of Tea
Method.
Sits on the following Business/Association
Councils: North Clinton Business Association,
Wal-Mart/City Hall Committee, Rotary Club,
and Rochester Area Employment Network.
Using numerous job development strategies.
Our circle is their circle.
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Help me determine what my level of
readiness to pursue employment is
Enhance my willingness to engage in
activities/actions to pursue employment
Find best ways to engage me in the process
Get in touch with my hopes, preferences,
values
Explore past and current experiences
Consider future possibilities
Create action steps that develop readiness
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NOT about labeling me as “ready” or “not
ready” to work
NOT about screening me out or excluding me
from vocational services
NOT about my capacity to work or improve
my economic self-sufficiency
NOT about determining the achievability or
realism of my goals
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Expectations
Reflections
Outcome-oriented
Accountability