8:13am Friday 15th January 2010
A CHARITY in York has been awarded £40,000 to fund a new project aimed at helping people recovering from serious mental health problems get back to work.
Our Celebration, which is based in Highcliffe Court, Clifton, has secured the grant from Lloyds TSB Foundation.
The charity will use the money to recruit a mentor to work with people with conditions such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder who have recovered sufficiently from their illness to seek employment.
David Smith, general manager at Our Celebration, said: “For a small charity like us, a grant of this size is absolutely amazing. Normally we are out rattling tins and counting every penny.
“We work with people who are really quite poorly, with severe and enduring mental health problems.
“When you have been poorly for quite a long time, your skills aren’t up-to-date and moving on and finding a job can be really difficult, especially in the recession.
“But one of the best ways of keeping well is by having employment because it gives you a social life, gives your life some routine and gets you money.
“The new mentor will be doing one-to-one work with people to help them think about what job they want to move into and then give them the practical support to get through the application and interview process.
“If over the next two years we can show this works, we are hoping that we can sell it to the NHS.
“A lot of people who have started to recover are being kept in the service unnecessarily – it is bad for them and it is incredibly expensive for the NHS. It would be much more cost-effective to give us the money to help get people back to work, which means the NHS can take them off its books."
Our Celebration is already recruiting for the part-time mentor post, which is being advertised on its website, ourcelebration.org.uk
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