EDGE Employment, a service of the Action
for Mental Health Society (North Shore, Rodney) Inc, (AMHS)
provides employment services to people with mental illness living
in the North Harbour region.
The AMHS is a community based organisation that began thirteen
years ago primarily in response to lack of local services to
assist people being discharged from psychiatric institutions
back into the community.
The AMHS started with the aim of providing long-term accommodation
for people who experience mental ill-health, and has since grown
to provide a comprehensive range of support services which are
intended to assist and facilitate community integration:
“Just living in the community does not necessarily
make one a part of the community.”
The move to develop a supported employment programme was principally
in response to the expressed need of the society’s residents.
There was a large gap between existing sheltered work and day
activity programmes and the goal of part time or full time work.
People were not moving from these programmes into work in the
mainstream labour market.
In 1993 AMHS employed a “vocational support coordinator”
with a brief of researching and assessing employment and training
opportunities on the North Shore for psychiatric consumers,
and more importantly, assisting people who experience mental
illness to a position where they may be able to take advantage
of these opportunities.
Over a decade on with many successes and learning opportunities
under our belt the issue for us now is no longer whether this
would work or who wants it but more how can we continue to do
this better and do more of it. From auspicious beginnings of
a part time vocational coordinator who hoped to place one or
two clients in part time work the service now boasts seven fulltime
staff and a client base of 150, 90 or more a year which are
working.
