Career Services Guide: Supporting People Affected by Mental Health Issues

Employment is a cornerstone of social inclusion, yet people living with mental health problems face the highest unemployment rate of any disability group. Although people want to and are able to work, employment for many remains an illusive goal. People living with mental illness are capable of making an important contribution in the workforce, and do NOT need to be symptom-free to be successful.

At the same time, career service workers report more people are disclosing mental health problems as a factor in their employment journey. This CERIC-supported Career Services Guide offers a new lens for understanding people affected by mental illness and practical strategies for engaging them in supportive ways. When properly trained, career service workers play a critical role in helping clients to meet their full employment potential.

Featuring five chapters, the guide, along with supporting videos, will help practitioners to consider beliefs that may limit opportunity, build awareness of recovery-oriented practices, and acquire the skills needed to better serve the one in five Canadians who experience mental health issues:

Chapter 1 – Employment & Recovery, Mental Health in the Workplace, Psychological Health & Safety
Chapter 2 – Promoting Personal Recovery, Recovery-Oriented Counselling, Peer Support, Managing Crisis, Caring for the Caregiver
Chapter 3 – Recovery Happens in the Community, Strengthening Connections and Roles, Stigma & Discrimination, Diversity Issues
Chapter 4 – Messages for Employers, Disclosure is Personal, Legal Requirements, Specialized Employment Approaches, Supported Employment Approaches, Self Directed Employment Tools
Chapter 5 – Mental Illness 101, Complex Pathways to Mental Illness, Accessing Supports, Resources

The Guide provides career and guidance counsellors with a general frame of reference to help delineate all aspects of the assessment and evaluation process and associated issues.

The Guide seeks to clarify professional assessment and evaluation practices without specific reference to a particular conceptualization or approach, in order to respect counsellor theoretical choice.

The Guide also aims to contribute to the maintenance and development of career and guidance counsellor knowledge and skills within their scope of practice and in relation to the legal foundations of their practice.

The Guide deals with career and guidance counsellor assessment practices. It should not be confused with the interpretation guide for the Loi modifiant le code des professions et d’autres dispositions législatives dans le domaine de la santé mentale et des relations humaines (An Act to amend the Professional Code and other legislation in the mental health and human relations sectors).

This Guide is comprised of four sections: 

Section 1 addresses assessment as an essential feature of career and guidance counsellor practice. It is specifically concerned with how assessment contributes to professional judgment within a scope of practice, to knowledge and skills, to reserved activities of career and guidance counsellors and to ethical responsibilities. Section 2 defines assessment in regards to three main dimensions of scope of practice: psychological functioning, personal resources, and environmental conditions. Section 3 introduces the process of assessment, which is defined as involving four steps: gathering, decoding, analyzing and communicating information. Finally, Section 4 raises some considerations that allow career and guidance counsellors to better situate themselves in relation to the role of assessment in the context of career and guidance counselling.