Social firms: Sustainable employment for people with mental illness

Objective: Social firms or enterprises aim to offer sustainable employment in supportive workplaces for people who are disadvantaged in the labour market. Therefore, this study sought to explore employees' views in one social firm about the features of their workplace that they found supportive.Participants: Seven employees were recruited, all of whom experienced persistent mental illness, and had worked in this social firm for between eleven months and six years. Methods: A semi-structured interview, the Work Environment Impact Scale (version 2.0), was used to explore participants' views of their workplace and to rate how its physical and social characteristics impacted them. Participants also rated their job satisfaction with a modified Indiana Job Satisfaction Scale. Results: Features of the social firm workplace identified by these employees as contributing to their sustained employment and satisfaction were the rewards, task demands, work schedule, and workplace interactions with supervisors and other co-workers. From their views, guiding principles for the development of supportive workplaces and evaluation of their capacity to afford sustainable employment were derived. Conclusions: This study adds to current knowledge about workplace supports from an employee perspective, and is of relevance for informing future social firm development, workplace design and evaluation.     

Individual and environmental factors related to job satisfaction in people with severe mental illness employed in social enterprises

Objective: The purpose of this study was to enhance understanding of the impact of individual and environmental variables on job satisfaction among people with severe mental illness employed in social enterprises.Participants: A total of 248 individuals with severe mental illness employed by social enterprises agreed to take part in the study. Methods: We used logistic regression to analyse job satisfaction. A model with job satisfaction as the dependent variable, and both individual (occupational self-efficacy and severity of symptoms perceived) and environmental (workplace) factors (provision of workplace accommodations, social support from co-workers, organizational constraints) as well as external factors (family support) as predictors, was tested on the entire sample. Results: All findings across the study suggest a significant positive impact of both individual and environmental factors on job satisfaction. People with higher occupational self-efficacy who were provided with workplace accommodations and received greater social support were more likely to experience greater job satisfaction.Conclusions: These results suggest that certain features of social enterprises, such as workplace accommodations, are important in promoting job satisfaction in people with severe mental illness. Further studies are warranted to expand knowledge of the workplace features that support employees with severe mental illness in their work integration process.     

What do employers think about employing people with experience of mental illness in New Zealand workplaces?

The researchers investigated employers' experiences with individuals with a mental illness and in their workplaces. Seventy-two business owners or human resource managers were interviewed. Most knew the prospective employee's health background prior to deciding to employ them. The majority of the reported experiences with employed individuals were very positive. Key strategies the employers or managers reported using to support employees were: to create trustworthy relationships, to work through issues and to seek external support.     

Workers' perspectives on self-directing mainstream return to work following acute mental illness: Reflections on partnerships

Objective: To examine barriers and facilitators influencing self-direction of return to mainstream work following acute mental illness.Participants: Five individuals who had attempted return to mainstream work following acute mental illness. Methods: In depth, semi-structured qualitative interviews with the five participants selected through purposive sampling. Results: The three main themes related to the workers' self-direction of their return to work experience were (a) worker self-management, (b) workers' 'personal' partnerships and (c) workplace partnerships. Conclusion: Personal and workplace partnerships are integral to supporting workers as they take ownership of their full potential and self-direct return to mainstream work.     

The Social Relationships and Social Support of Aging Mothers Whose Adult Daughters Are Mentally Ill

Guided by a conceptual framework highlighting multiple facets of social relationships and social support, this study examined the extent to which aging mothers of adult daughters with a serious mental illness were socially integrated with members of their network. It further examined the relational content of these mothers’ social ties as tangible or intangible support and the nature of their supportive exchanges with network members, particularly their adult daughters with mental illness. A structured face-to-face interview was conducted with 22 aging mothers of these adult daughters. Two methods of analysis were used to analyze data: counting and content analysis. Findings showed aging mothers of daughters with mental illness were socially integrated with relatives and nonrelatives, evidenced relational content of tangible and intangible support in their social ties and engaged in bidirectional and asymmetrical support exchanges with network members, including their daughters with mental illness. These findings suggest that social resources in the form of social relationships and support are embedded in the networks of aging mothers who have adult daughters with serious mental illness. Practitioners should assess support contributions to the aging mothers of adult daughters with serious mental illness from a wide range of social relationships including their daughters.     

Deinstitutionalization, social rejection, and the self-esteem of former mental patients

Modified labeling theorists have long argued that the stigma of mental illness has important consequences for the lives of people with mental illness. We propose that social rejection is an enduring force in the lives of people with mental illness and that these experiences are central to understanding the poor self-concepts described by many former psychiatric patients. We explore changes in a cohort of recently deinstitutionalized mental patients' (N = 88) self-esteem and experiences with social rejection using data from a three wave panel survey conducted while institutionalized and over a two-year period following the patients' discharge from a long-term state hospital. Our results indicate that social rejection is a persistent source of social stress for the discharged patients. Moreover, these experiences increase feelings of self-deprecation that, in turn, weaken their sense of mastery. Where the patients' received their follow-up care--whether in a community setting or in another state hospital--had little impact on their self-related feelings or on their experiences of social rejection. Our results provide further support for modified labeling theory and underscore the need to consider the dynamic relationship between stigmatizing experiences and self-related changes.     

Online Peer Support Programs for Young People with a Parent Who has a Mental Illness: Service Providers’ Perspectives

Young people with a parent or parents who have mental illness are at a higher-than-average risk of experiencing emotional and behavioural difficulties. Notwithstanding the difficulties experienced by these young people, opportunities to interact with and obtain support from peers living in similar families can be beneficial. While young people face several barriers to participating in face-to-face peer support programs, online approaches potentially provide a different way of obtaining peer support. This paper aims to explore service providers’ perspectives on current Victorian peer support programs, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of online approaches to peer support. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 17 mental health professionals who work with families affected by parental mental illness. Participants recognised that many young people miss out on face-to-face peer support programs, and were highly supportive of the idea of online programs. This study suggests that online peer support programs for young people could occupy an important position in the evolving suite of services for Australian families affected by mental illness.     

Children and Young People Living Through a Serious Family Illness: Structural,Interpersonal and Personal Perspectives

This study explores the experiences of children and young people in Britain living through a serious family illness. The study considers the interplay between social structures, social relationships and individual agency. We draw on data from the Millennium Cohort Study to estimate the number of children and young people affected nationally and on seven in‐depth interviews to understand young people’s experiences and the effects on their daily lives. Living through a serious family illness impacts on young people’s educational achievements, mental health and social relationships over long periods. Policy and service responses are suggested.     

Social network and family business: Uncovering hybrid family firms

What does it mean for a private enterprise in China to be embedded in a family? Our purpose here is twofold: (1) use social network analysis to describe what it means for a firm to be embedded in a family, (2) reveal from the application a new kind of firm, not family, yet akin to family. Armed with data on a large probability sample of private enterprises — a third of which meet ownership and employment criteria of being family businesses — we uncover a category of “hybrid family firms” that look modern in the style of firms that exclude family, but operate socially in ways similar to family firms. Our conclusion from summary statistics on the sample is that there are no differences in average performance level or network advantage for the three categories of businesses: family firms, hybrid family firms, and family-excluded firms. The fact that CEOs of family firms and hybrid family firms more often turn to family as key business contacts is a fact about network composition that raises no question about network mechanisms. Whether the CEO turns to more or fewer family contacts, government help is more likely with stronger political connections, and business success and survival are more likely with a large, open network. That said, the look-modern, act-traditional hybrid family firms stand alone in prospering with a CEO embedded in a closed business network. Recognition of hybrid family firms adds to the literature’s illustrations of social network analysis used to distinguish types of businesses and business people, and extends the population of organizations within which governance and strategy are likely to be better understood when viewed through a family logic.     

Greater involvement of people living with HIV/AIDS in South Africa

This study reports on a pilot project, the greater involvement of people living with HIV/AIDS Workplace Model, which places trained fieldworkers living openly with HIV/AIDS in selected partner organisations sectors, where they set up, review or enrich workplace policies and programmes. The project adds credibility to partners' HIV/AIDS programmes and creates a supportive environment for people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) and others to speak about HIV/AIDS. Eleven men and women living with HIV, aged between 30 and 45, and with varied life experiences and education levels, shared a willingness to speak about their HIV status in their workplace. They worked in very different environments but their collective experiences showed that PLWHA can add value to workplace HIV/AIDS programmes in a way that is relevant, effective, efficient, sustainable and ethical. They made companies and communities more aware of the intense need for HIV/AIDS policies and encouraged care and support for infected and affected people.     

Enhancing Well-Being at the Workplace:

The workplace is a social environment and for many the opportunity for social interaction at work is a source of satisfaction. Yet, the quality of relations is variable and can be a source of anxiety, stress and work dissatisfaction. There is a need to enhance employee well-being and to improve social relations by increasing the opportunity for social support at the workplace. Two approaches are proposed: (a) as a health promotion strategy, to provide employees with training in interpersonal skills, and (b) as a component of aftercare, to foster the development of formal and informal support networks in order to reintegrate employees with emotional difficulties into the workplace. These strategies are discussed in the light of their applicability to EAP practice.     

An Interface Between Mental Health Systems and the Community: Italian Social Cooperatives

ABSTRACT

For more than two decades, Italian B-type social cooperatives have represented a sustainable social business model of working with disadvantaged people, especially the mentally disabled. The purpose of this article is to identify the major factors that make this business model successful. By drawing on his recent work of Italian social cooperatives, including a case study, the author explores organizational goals and repertoires as well as support structures and networks of those organizations. This study explores three major factors that account for the sustainability and growth of this model: good regulation; a supportive system of infrastructures; and democratic operational governance. These make the social cooperative an inspiring example of the outcomes that are possible when the mentally disabled are properly trained in a supportive environment. The social cooperative is a model that could well prove similarly successful if copied in other parts of the world.     

Practice guidelines: therapeutic interventions aimed at assisting people with bipolar affective disorder achieve their vocational goals

Based on a thorough review of literature and findings from an earlier study on what are the factors helping individuals with bipolar disorder to find and remain in employment, the practice guidelines are proposed to aim at assisting individuals affected by bipolar disorder or other persistent mental disorder achieve their vocational goals. The proposed guidelines emphasise an integrated approach to the employment problem, incorporating clinical, vocational training and employment services. The guidelines advocate quick job placements as opposed to prolonged pre-vocational assessment and training are preferable for people with bipolar disorder in view of their usual high educational achievements and vocational experiences prior to the onset of illness. When necessary, a graduated approach to immediate placement may be adopted. Interventions proposed in these guidelines involve working with an individual client, mobilising support from family, workmates, managers, advising the employers on provision of support systems within the actual workplace and liaising with government agencies to reinforce client's aspiration to work.     

The Attitudes of Social Work Students and Practicing Psychiatric Social Workers Toward the Inclusion in the Community of People with Mental Illness

Abstract

This study measured and compared the attitudes of social work students and practicing psychiatric social workers to the inclusion in the community of people with mental illness. The Community Living Attitude Scale Mental Illness (comprising the four subscales of Empowerment, Exclusion, Sheltering, and Similarity) was administered to a random sample of 68 Israeli BA social work students (first year: n = 35; third year: n = 33) and 28 practicing psychiatric social workers. Overall, the participants endorsed Empowerment and perceived the Similarity of persons with mental illness to themselves more than they agreed with the Exclusion attitude of segregating those persons from community life. First-year students rated Empowerment and Similarity significantly lower than did the third-year students and rated Sheltering significantly higher than did psychiatric social workers. Psychiatric social workers did not differ from third-year students and did not have stronger attitudinal commitment to the inclusion paradigm. They differed from first-year students only in the sheltering attitude; they showed lower support for sheltering people with mental illness.     

Employee absence incentives in the welfare state: Toward explaining cross-national differences

The model developed in this article, which investigates the economic incentives created by the institutions through which capitalist welfare states administer sickness absence benefits, implies that absence rates are increased by a sickness benefit subsidy to the firm, that increases with reduced liability of the firm for the sickness benefits received by its employees and the with generosity of sickness benefit payments. Cross-national comparisons show that aggregate absence rates tend to be highest in countries that prefer to award social benefits largely independently of the recipient's value as a labor commodity. The model is extended to show that such social values strengthen absence incentives in two ways: through a sickness absence subsidy effect that provides larger subsidies for firms, and through a social support effect according to which the employee's utility of time absent from work is increased.     

“We're the Normal Ones Here”: Community Involvement,Peer Support,and Transgender Mental Health

This article uses ethnographic methods to explore how peer support and community involvement influence the mental health and well-being of transgender (or, trans) people in the southeastern United States. The study builds on existing research that suggests that trans community involvement and peer support among trans people enhance mental health experiences and moderate the effects of stigma and discrimination on health outcomes. Through qualitative analysis of 158 hours of participant observation and 33 in-depth interviews with members of a trans community organization in the U.S. Southeast, this paper identifies three key processes through which peer support and community involvement enhance the mental health and well-being of trans people: (1) the normalization of trans identities and experiences; (2) the creation of a social support network; and (3) the empowerment of trans people.     

Social harmony and the small firm: a reappraisal

Government, academics and the media have, over the past decade, entered fully into the spirit of ‘small business revival’. Many of the contributions to this debate, however, have taken for granted the nature of small firm employment relations. It has frequently been remarked that workers in a small firms behave in ways more compatible with the goals and interests of their employers than employees in large firms. Thus, industrial relations are assumed to be more harmonious. In support of this assertion attention is usually drawn to the relative infrequency of conflict and industrial disputes, and the absence of militant trade unionism as an indication of the small firm workers' greater commitment to the goals of the enterprise and the interests of the employer (Ingham 1970). This paper suggests that such assumptions are unwarranted and provide a potentially misleading starting point for studies of employment relations in small firms. Data from a small number of in-depth interviews with small firm personnel is used to illustrate some of the complex and contradictory processes through which capital-labour relations may be constituted within small enterprises.     

Disclosure of mental health

As today's workplaces strive toward a climate of inclusiveness for persons with disabilities, much work remains for employers in developing a process to achieve this ideal. While survivors of mental illness are encouraged to disclose related concerns to their employer, such sharing of personal information remains daunting. Similarly, employers attempting to assist the process are often awed by the extent of collaborations involved in integrating employees with mental health issues back to work as well as concern about compliance with human rights legislation. Needed accommodations in terms of approach to the work itself are often simple; however substantiating the need for adjustments is more complex. This case study introduces a model to support the development of shared goals and shared understandings for return to work (RTW) among workers with mental health concerns, employers, co-workers and therapists. The model of occupational competence is used as a basis to guide dialogue, identify challenges and generate solutions that take into consideration a worker's preferences, sensitivities, culture and capacities in relationship to the occupational demands in a given workplace environment. A case study is used to demonstrate the potential utility of the model in assisting stakeholders to strengthen collaborations and partnering to achieve a shared understanding of worker and workplace needs.     

The Ecology of Diversity in Organizational Settings: Lessons from a Case Study

This paper advances a social ecological perspective on the resources necessary to support workplace diversity. It is based on observations from an ongoing organizational case study which used a collaborative inquiry process. We worked with insiders to establish a project steering team, conducted 36 confidential interviews, and met with work units to assess diversity-related concerns. The complex case portrait that emerged illuminates four lessons about the ecology of workplace diversity: (1) the influential role of organizational history and tradition in shaping current diversity dynamics, (2) the importance of understanding how participants' experiences of events may differ, (3) the power of informal organizational processes, and (4) the connections between individual, organizational, and broader cultural values. We discuss these lessons in the context of a three-part definition of support for effective diversity which includes representational, interactional, and cultural components. The goal is to further our understanding of the factors that support or hinder workforce diversity so we may more effectively create settings that are supportive of diversity.     

The Impact of Gay,Lesbian, and Bisexual Workplace Issues on Productivity

People in organizations lack the skills, knowledge, tools, and resources to effectively address gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender workplace issues. Consequently, most organizations fail to attain optimum performance from the approximately ten percent of their population who are sexual minorities. Two examples of what occurs when these issues are not addressed are: (1) gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered employees do not feel included in the organization. When people, any people, are excluded rather than included it is almost impossible to expect optimal performance; and, (2) organizations send messages to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered employees that encourage them to hide their sexual orientation at work. When employees devote energy to hiding-as gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgendered employees often do to protect themselves and their livelihood-performance suffers. In this article, these workplace issues are brought out of the corporate closet and into the mainstream of business performance.