Special Events
@Daisydreamer wrote:Hi @chibam,
Firstly I am so sorry to hear the exploitation you have felt and experienced when you have worked with organisations to return to work. It's something that no person should ever have to go through, and I can hear the impact it has had for you
You raise some really valid concerns from your personal experience, and I can hear the care that you have for those who might be interested to apply for the peer pathways program. I share the care and desire for this to be a safe, inclusive and supportive program. I hope that my response can alleviate some of these concerns.
@Daisydreamer wrote:I really value your feedback Chibam, and the courage it takes to stand up for others who have had negative experiences related to return to work or through employment agencies. Every person has a right to feel safe, heard and supported in the return to work process, and for their wishes and personal goals to lead the direction
Thanks, @Daisydreamer 🙂. I think that just knowing that SANE is aware of the potential problems that could occur with a program like this, greatly reduces my concerns that such problems will actually occur.
I hope I didn't ramble/rant too much in getting my point across. 😉
@Daisydreamer wrote:You are right, not everyone will be interested in peer support that complete this program, and we are working to map out what applicable skills, training and supports we can offer to support people to set their own career pathway (even if that is outside of peer support), and help them to take steps towards their personal goals. It will be a very person-led process. I would be really interested to hear if you think there are any areas outside of peer support that we should also focus on to support those who might decide peer support isn't for them?
Well I guess you really ought to be ready for anything, since you never know who might wander up to SANE next, nor what their life aspirations might be.
What I will say, though, is that we (i.e. society) are gonna have to start looking at employment in broader terms then "What job do you want?" and/or "What industry do you want to work in?" Because the needs that the person seeks to fulfill with their employment may not be so much tied to a certain job type.
For example, what I want most of all out of a job is to have a close-knit family with my coworkers. I have a loose attraction to the idea of working in the film industry, but I'm confidant I could find happiness in pretty much any workplace, just so long as I'm surrounded by people I love and enjoy (and those feelings are reciprocated, of course). Conversely, if I was assigned to work at a studio, but there was no one there I connected with, that wouldn't do me any good.
But there are all sorts of other ways we need to start thinking about employment in broader terms then just the job type. For example, you might have a guy who just wants to be outdoors as much as possible, and he doesn't really care whether you give him a job as a jackaroo, or a scientist who tests creek water, or a line repairman for the power company; just so long as he's out in the fresh air all day.
These distinctions become extremely important when we start talking about "next-best" scenarios, for people who can't be given their absolute ideal solution. For example, say you had the guy who wanted to be a scientist who ambles about testing creek water all day, but you can't get him that job, so you might be inclined to say: "I couldn't get you that creek water job you wanted. But I got you a job opperating the gas chromatograph in the water board's quality control lab! That's almost as good, right?", where you would be completely missing the point that the guy was more interested in the outdoorsy freedom of the job then the sciency side of it. He might loathe the idea of being cooped up in a lab for the rest of his life. But people like you and I wouldn't be inclined to see the crucial differances between those two jobs; we'd be more inclined to notice their similarities.
So I think we need better ways of determining precisely what people want from employment, rather then just asking: "what job do you want?" Because I think those simplistic questions create a lot of pitfalls in our communication and understanding of one another, and hence lead to a lot of poor outcomes.
