Armadale Mental Health sets the employment bar

BECOMING the first metropolitan partnership to deliver a co-located Individual Placement & Support (IPS) service in Western Australia has meant Armadale Mental Health Services and ORS Group now offer jobseekers' living with mental health issues a significant advantage in realising their employment goals and potential.

Armadale Mental Health formalised its IPS partnership with ORS Group in late February after deciding to implement the process in August last year.

It’s hoped this monumental achievement will inspire other mental health services in both rural and metropolitan WA to adopt international best practice, IPS and assist people living with a mental illness to find work.

ORS Group has existing IPS partnerships in place in New South Wales with several sites in Bankstown, five in the Hunter Valley and four in Sydney.

Armadale Mental Health has known about IPS since 2011, when Centre for Mental Health Research Head of Social Inclusion and Recovery Dr Geoffrey Waghorn visited Perth to advocate the benefits of IPS on recovery for individuals with mental health issues.

However, it took WA Association for Mental Health IPS state project lead Philleen Dickson’s enthusiasm and unwavering support for the competitive employment model to help get it off the ground in the west.

“We knew the value, we knew it was evidence based practice, it’s been around for many years, the literature is out there, and with the help of Philleen driving it we were finally able to implement it,” Armadale Health Service community mental health rehabilitation service coordinator Jyoti Manik told WAAMH eNews.

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