Stakeholders get training and coaching in supporting mental health persons

Carey Ann Clarke

Helping with the workshop is Disability Aid Abroad representative, Carey Ann Clarke. According to Clarke, they are bringing their forty years of experience of supporting and training persons with mental disabilities across the world to Belize. Clarke says that in Belize there is a real issue with employing persons with mental health difficulties.

Carey Ann Clarke, Disability Aid Abroad

“The country has signed up to the UNCRPD, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities and there is a lot that we can maybe share in how to actually support that employment and stuff. So what we are trying to do is talk about this job coaching role—to talk to the consumers about all of their circumstances and then also of their job culture so they can have a very good understanding of the environment in which they will be working. And also the job culture will be able to be an advocate between the employee and the employer as well. So this is a model that we are bringing and I believe it is fresh in Belize as well too. There is a clear distinction between learning disability and mental health. Everybody has mental health and it is how we can control and balance our mental health that is really important. One of the things that we are trying to do for those consumers with mental health difficulties is to enable them to support and have good mental health within the workplace. And very clearly from our own experience in Ireland and the UK, we have the experience to show that people do have the capacity. It is not the people with mental health that don’t have qualifications…they do. And they do have skills and qualities that they can bring to the work environment, however, what we are trying to control for people as well is maybe the stress and pressures of the work environment as maybe the writ of output at some times because they need to take care of their own mental health. So it is about the protection.”

On Wednesday, a workshop will be held with mental health persons as well as employers.