The content and opinions expressed herein are those of the writer:
One of the missing components in today's affirmative business programs is one that addresses the fairly simple but limited needs of "accommodation" for those with serious psychiatric disorders.
There are many programs that exist today that are operated as heavily financially subsidized "sheltered" workshops.
Others refer to themselves as "assisted employment", but are still significantly subsidized operations which contain MUCH structural tokenism.
The stigma associated with mental health issues is as strong and prevalent among the health care providers of the mental health industry as any where else in society.
Understandably when many of the daily activities of social and professional staff revolve around those with extreme psychiatric and developmental abnormalities ranging from cognitive retardation to those who are forcibly medicated and institutionalized for behavioral and personality disorders of a violent and/or criminal nature, there is obvious environmental and experiential influences that create this occupational "baggage" that shapethe care providers general attitudes toward those with mental health disorders.
Objectivity is a clinical and academic issue but human nature makes the psychiatric staff just as susceptible to prejudice as the uninformed, in fact fairly stated these professionals have all the more reason for their influenced behavior and attitudes.
Corporate down sizing, two income households, increased pressure to achieve, a global economy targeting unskilled labour to third world countries, environmental influences, and the ever increasing anxiety from a technological world growing at an exponential rate that is compressing change and adaptation needs into years and decades which previously took centuries are among the common causes for an ever increasing number of psychiatric diseases and victims of mental health related complications.
The mental health consumer and psychiatric patient are no longer just the developmentally handicapped, chronically socially and emotionally disturbed. Many highly functional, intelligent and responsible persons are increasingly becoming diagnosed as having significant and serious psychiatric disorders. There are in fact some psychiatric abnormalities that are being studied and considered as adaptive evolutionary changes which we still are dealing with as diseases and psychiatrically undesirable affects.
The point to all this is that for each more serious or obvious mental health patient that is institutionalized with more chronic and less rehabilitatable conditions society has many more that are withdrawing from mainstream activities and occupations and are becoming dependant on social benefits and programs but who are yet quite highly functional, rehabilitatable and in many cases gifted intellectually but victims of a their highly sensitive psychiatric and mental states.
We do NOT have programs to help these victims return to their former functions. We have many programs providing activities and simple employment for those with very little hope of long term self sustainable independence and most mental health care providers are attempting to accommodate ALL those with psychiatric disabilities within a common environment that forces those of various skill levels and cognitive abilities into performing equally simple unskilled work.
Somehow through social activism a philosophy that provided participation to all profiles of mental health consumers into areas of responsibility was implemented using a simple token democratic process with little or no consideration for occupational experiential or cognitive suitability.
This STILL is prevalent and dominant in organizations and assisted employment opportunities for those with any kind of psychiatric and/or mental health handicap. There are even programs that combine developmentally handicapped (cognitively retarded), with those with university education's, professional backgrounds and significant entrepreneurial backgrounds.
Not only does this perpetuate the stigma by lumping ALL profiles of mental health consumers as though the disease in and of itself was the common problem, but it is also responsible for many more highly functional psychiatric consumers from "coming out of the closet" for fear of having this demeaning stigma label attached and also knowing that main stream employment is still ignorant and fearful of the unknown factors of the psychiatric victims thus making them instant targets for dismissal and isolation. Furthermore there are no programs available that allow the psychiatric victims to associate in a more focused manner with others of like social and academic accomplishment.
I personally am both frustrated and angered by the significant amount of tolerance, accommodation, and facilitation given to the lower functioning chronically handicapped mental health consumer while the less obvious, highly intelligent and skilled psychiatric victims are in limbo. I have found that a lack of tolerance for some rather basic problems of balancing one's life for those who are more intellectually proficient is both a result of the injustice of the health care worker's who find the cognitive abilities of some of the psychiatric patients to be intimidating and thus show a lack of facilitation and accommodation to the less obviously challenged that would be shown and given to those with less cognitive ability.
Anger is indeed just in this case, when very little help and comparatively smaller amounts of accommodation and facilitation are withheld when and where it would be the MOST beneficial. Simple assistance on certain basic life skills could make a person not only self reliant and self-sustaining but possibly because of certain talents and abilities the person could even be instrumental in helping others with psychiatric disorders become more independent or at least requiring less charitable and chronically sustained subsidization toward employment, training and activity maintenance.
While some mental health consumers are encouraged to stay close and dependant on social benefits, others are being overlooked as being capable of self assistance as though it was an attitude or motivation problem and not a clinical disease as it truly is.
For this reason, I encourage those with trade skills, entrepreneurial experience, administrative backgrounds and abilities to communicate and organize. The creation of a nonprofit social entrepreneurially driven and managed organization can provide the opportunity for higher functioning mental health consumers to regain their pride, self confidence and even regain their main stream ability to return to competitive employment and business opportunities.
This form of organization DOES NOT EXIST and is greatly needed. This program will NOT evolve from the mental health industry which is saddled with it's own agenda and social issues to accommodate it's institutionalized profile of mental health consumer. The limits of funding is a strong limit to their ability to initiate this type of program as well as the stigma issues that exist from the civil servants that are both intimidated by and less tolerant of the higher functioning mental health consumer. Civil servant and entrepreneurialism are like oil and water. The two are not compatible and will not easily coexist nor is there a natural progression or evolution of a economically challenging program to be developed, encouraged or managed by civil servants and members of the Ministry of Health of Ontario.
This personal bias and view comes from recent events that have affected my own opinions of the above. I would be glad to share my experiences and information with any interested parties and encourage others of like mind and attitude and experience to get in touch for the purpose of networking and organizing a program that is so greatly needed by as high a number as 4-5% of society. Yes this statistic is as yet unknown and unstudied but the conservative speculation of up to 5% of society affected in the above described way, is indeed within conservative and realistic statistical probabilities. In fact I suspect it could even be higher.
I welcome and invite others similarly challenged and I challenge those in the health care industry to refute the above and/or do something about it!