Since early 2014, CSH has been working in close collaboration with the San Diego Workforce Partnership and the County of San Diego Behavioral Health Services on the Work Well Initiative. This five year Mental Health Services Act-funded initiative has the goal of increasing employment for individuals with lived experience of serious mental illness as its core tenet. Toward that end, the project created the San Diego Behavioral Health Five-Year Strategic Employment Plan.
The plan promotes three key models for increasing employment in San Diego County:
- The evidence-based practice of Supported Employment (www.Dartmouthips.edu)
- Transitional Jobs (http://www.heartlandalliance.org/nationalinitiatives/our-initiatives/national-transitional-jobs.html) and
- Social Enterprise (https://www.se-alliance.org/what-is-social-enterprise or www.REDF.org)
As part of our overall strategies, we will continue to provide technical consulting services, conduct trainings, promote employment resource directories and funding announcements, offer employer socials, provide presentations on mental health and stigma and hold annual focus groups, to remain in close contact with the clients who are working to find jobs and the employment specialists and others who are working diligently to assist them.
For more information about the Work Well Initiative, please contact Tom Stubberud at 619-232-3194 ext. 4286.
