How do occupational therapists support people who want to work?

Gabrielle Richards: As we are about supporting people to get on with their everyday lives, work is part of that. Many people who have mental health difficulties, it has been presumed ‘don’t want to work, can’t work’, and that’s actually not true.

People who have mental health difficulties often are in work, and want to stay in work, and how you might support people to make reasonable adjustments in their workplace. People who have long-term mental health difficulties may have worked previously and might need some stepping stones along the way to get back into employment, so it could be focussing on helping people gain confidence for a job interview, to take them to the job interview, getting on a course, or doing some volunteering for example to build confidence in order to build that skill set of work.

And you might also help people think about the conversations they might want to have in their workplace, what you might bring to your employer about making a ‘reasonable adjustment’, whether you disclose that you have some mental health difficulties, and why it might be reasonable to have shorter working hours for that particular day, or just picking up on the signs when you are becoming unwell and might need a bit of extra support. But once again its from that practical perspective, it’s about the doing, and it’s about keeping people in their lives, and employment being one of those things. Not everyone wants to work but a significant number of people do, and we certainly have the skills to support people should they want to go on that journey.