Vocational Support Is Here!

[Natvoc]

Hello all members!!

I am newly registered with your site and would like to tell you all about the newly developed Vocational Service.

We are a support service based in Hailsham , Middlebridge Day Services in fact, and working within the community and surrounding areas.

Any person of working age who has experienced mental health problems can use this service.

We can offer you advice, guidance and support in all work or college enviroments.

We can help you to get back to work or education.

We can help you to understand permitted work whilst retaining your benefits and can help you to make sence of all your skills.

Come and talk to us ... we will try and awnser all your questions and what we don,t know we will try and find out for you.

Interested?

Call Darren, Kenny or Natalie on 01323 846458.

[Chris]

Thanks for your post Natvoc, I'm going to move your post to the hearing voices discussion forum as it's seems to be aimed directly at people who hear voices rather than friends and family.

Sounds very interesting by the way, is it available nationally or just from sussex?

[Natvoc]

Thanks for your post Natvoc, I'm going to move your post to the hearing voices discussion forum as it's seems to be aimed directly at people who hear voices rather than friends and family.

Sounds very interesting by the way, is it available nationally or just from sussex?

I think that this service will be avaliable nationally as some point but as yet there are only a few scattered across the country.

The Sussex Partnership however do have a very good vocational strategy and aim to cover the whole area from east to west.

This service was started in April of this year, still very young but is proving to be an invaluble link for all service users.

[Clive_Nugent]

St Mary's just got rid of these people because they were unreliable. And when I rung them on my own initiative they did not get back to me. The disability act says that employers have to make "reasonable adjustment" for people with disabilities, for example when I worked at Burke's they installed flashing lights so that a deaf woman would be aware of a fire alarm; but if you are going to say "Can I have the rest of the day off becuase my voices are bad?", employers are going to be far less keen. There is a scheme where you can have someone come along to work with you, but in my opinion that would be embarassing and would really highlight that there is a mentally ill person on the premises. I don't think there is an easy way. EAVS in Eastbourne are good for voluntary work, and you can get advice at the job centre about getting back to paid work. The Bourne unit seems to work well; maybe that's the answer - setting up companies that employ mentally ill people only.

[Natvoc]

Thankyou for your response Clive.

I am very sorry that you have not received the support that you may have needed from a vocational service designed for service users .

We do cover a large area and seek to give an honest integral service to all of our clients and do receive referrals from the whole of our service including St Mary,s House.

In response to your comment... You may have misinterpreted something. We have been running a job surgery at St Mary,s but since our service has become over subscribed we have temporarily had to freeze this venue until manpower is avaliable.

Should you wish to meet in the future , please make some contact details avaliable and when a place becomes vacant we will contact you.

In the meantime I wish you good positive results with the other vocational links that you have found within our area and hope that your needs are met.

[Clive_Nugent]

Turning up is half the battle. I'm sure we can agree on that. The job centre runs something call the Richmond project that looks interesting.

[LOUISE]

I've not heard of the Richmond Project, I was just wondering what its all about.