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| Current topic: "Challenging client situations" |
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Independent guidance with a client mental health needs. |
I recently had a situation that posed me with a bit of an ethical dilema. I had a mental health client who wanted to come to my service, despite knowing he would be charged and he had already used the free services in the area. I was also outside any service he used so would be seeing him blind. I did see him and he proved to be a very successful client who felt I had helped him as it happened and I had offered equality of opportunity and access to my service regardless of any disability.
However, has anyone else faced this kind of dilema and if so what courses of action would they feel they would need to do before seeing a client with mental health needs to protect both the client and themselves. |
| Posted: Fri Feb 22nd, 2008 1:18 p.m. |
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Re: Independent guidance with a client mental health needs. |
CALM deals with this client group all the time. We tend to have two recurring issues. Firstly, because we are out of the loop you are never sure what you are going to get. We make use of public meeting points to give us some protection. We use our local libraries because they have small interview rooms. I've also used cafes, and sometimes done deals with other organizations for use of their space.
Second issue, is that a lot of the services designed to help such people seem to have self-limiting prophecies regarding this client group. They seem to get into resistance mode and try to interfere with the clients desires on the grounds that they have mental health issues and can not decided for themselves what they want. This poses great concerns. I'm not talking here about a person being clearly unrealistic career wise. We had a client recently how wanted to work in accounting he liked numbers. But his psychiatrist and the likes felt it would be too much for him and would not support a referral to mainstream government funded provides of IAG. If CALM's free service did not exist he'd have had to pay or tried to steer is own way through the complexity of government funding and projects. I've always said that IAG services should be paid for by a grant that the individual applies for and his free to spend where they like. That might ensure services for everyone not just those under level 2 with the right characteristics. |
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| Sat Feb 23rd, 2008 3:02 p.m. |
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Re: Re: Independent guidance with a client mental health needs. |
| Thanks this was really useful for me. The libraries idea is a good one and I am in contact with my local library often so this is a real possibility for meeting for these situations. I agree with the second issue this client was really very well qualified (although a long time unemployed) and IAG services did support him but he wanted something more than the service covered. It is really good to know about Calm's service and that it really helped. It seems once someone has received mental health servcies that they are bound tosometimes through perception and it then actually makes it more difficult for individuals with mental health needs to access or enter mainstream services and employment. |
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| Sun Feb 24th, 2008 10:46 a.m. |
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