1. Presenter: Liz Hudson Research Manager.
Managing Personal Information.
Good practice disclosure
strategies for jobseekers.
2. Break Thru
People Solutions
450 staff across 3 states:
New South Wales
Queensland
Victoria. Service offering:
Mental Health
Disability
Employment
Training.
4. What is MPI?
A planned approach to disclosure.
An interactive discussion with job seekers:
“The Plan for Managing Personal Information”.
5. Rationale – Why MPI?
70%
avoid disclosing
their mental illness
33%
turned down for a job for which they were qualified
after it was revealed they had a mental health condition
6. 2011/12
• Small internal pilot project (unfunded) to
test MPI strategy
2012/13
• Six month pilot to evaluate MPI (funded
by NSW Government)
2014/15
MPI evolution at Break Thru
7. MPI plan (tool) sample adapted from Waghorn and Spowart (2010)
Goals, jobs, employers Customer service
Personal strengths
I am punctual, like following routines and clear
guidelines. I like to plan my day so that I can achieve my
goals. I am extremely fast at txting.
Sensitive information
How this impacts you
Agreed terms to explain
restrictions
Who can use these terms?
Workplace assistance
1)Dysgraphia - poor fine motor coordination impacts
writing , 2) Receptive language disorder - difficulty
interpreting auditory information.
1) A people-person who likes communicating face to
face. A good reader who makes good use of technology
by text or typing 2) She calls a spade a spade & enjoys
clear, direct information.
Employment Consultant.
Job carving to ensure duties match strengths, clear
checklist of duties with expected timeframes, co-
worker training & establishing a work buddy to assist
her to learn the social culture of the organisation.
8. “It is a positive tool for both the
Employment Consultant and
consumers to help explore and
explain disability to any employer
in a positive way.”
Findings
-job seeker perspective-
11. Consumers responded well to Jo, our consumer researcher.
Jo applies the strengths-based strategy of the MPI tool "into
my everyday life", improving her communication and
parenting skills.
An opportunity for Jo to learn new research skills.
Aligns with Disability Rights motto.
“Nothing about us without us”.
Consumer based research
- benefits in action-
14. Stigma reduction is more likely when:
Consumers are at the centre of the decision
making process...
Participating in research
Managing their Personal Information Plan
.
Disclosure is normalised and focuses on strengths.
In conclusion….
16. Special thanks to:
Jo Matheson, Consumer Research Assistant,
Break Thru People Solutions
Bradley Foxlewin, Deputy Commissioner
Mental Health Commission of NSW
Acknowledgements
17. Ellison, M.L., Russinova, Z., MacDonald-Wilson., K.L., & Lyass, A., (2003). Patterns
and correlates of workplace disclosure among professionals and managers with
psychiatric conditions. Journal of vocational rehabilitation, 18, 3-18.
Krupa, T., Kirsh, B., Cockburn, L., & Gewurtz, R. (2009). A model of stigma of mental
illness in employment. Work, 33(4), 413-425.
Waghorn, G., and Spowart, C.E. (2010). Managing personal information in supported
employment for people with psychiatric disabilities. Ch 13 in Vocational rehabilitation
and mental health. C. Lloyd (ed). New York: John Wiley and Sons.
Wahl, Otto F. (1999). Mental health consumers' experience of stigma.
Schizophrenia Bulletin, Vol 25(3) 467-478.
Contact details:
Liz Hudson: liz.hudson@breakthru.org.au
References & contact details
Editor's Notes
Introduce Break Thru
- a national not-for-profit organisation
-high quality person-centred services,
we enable thousands of people every year to address mental health, disability, employment, and training needs.
- We believe work is fundamental to a fulfilling and productive life and acknowledges the role that employment plays in recovery for people with MI,
--hence our endeavour to seek out solutions such as the one I will discuss here today, the MPI plan.
2010 – Dr Geoff Waghorn (QCMHR) and colleagues) developed a plan for managing personal information
2011 – internal pilot project at BT Sydney,
2012
– Funded by NSW Ministry of Health to trial.
Consumer researcher – employed by Break Thru for six months
Jo, who has been with us on this journey since 2012
2013- Project details -
Using the MPI tool (which will be shown on the next slide),
Jo interviewed 12 job seeking consumers to provide feedback on both the :
(1) MPI approach and the (2) document at the centre of the Plan: MPI Tool.
Goals, jobs, employers
Personal strengths
Sensitive information
How this impacts you
Agreed terms to explain restrictions
Who can use these terms?
Workplace assistance
As Jo indicated...
Recruiting Jo as part of the research team was beneficial for lots of reasons.
Consumers responded well to Jo. As she is their peer.
Jo claims that she now applies the strengths-based strategy of the MPI tool "into my everyday life", improving her communication and parenting skills.
The research gave Jo an opportunity to learn new skills
Nothing about us without us - Seeking consumer input on service delivery planning like MPI explicitly demonstrates the value in gaining a variety of perspectives
- Break Thru's research team reported on the research outcomes at a Research Forum, held at the, UTS.
60 people attended including Deputy NSW Health Commissioner Bradley Foxlewin.
Bradley also agreed to be filmed for this conference to demonstrate the benefits and impact of Consumer based research…..
Over to video
