Partnerships: creating vocational options for people with mental illness.

When we were asked to consider co-editing a special issue for WORK focused on enabling employment of people who experience mental ill-health, the idea of partnership came to mind. Partnership has previously featured in a special issue by Shaw and Lindsay [1]; its focus was on the importance of collaboration with in the return-to-work process, featuring a key partnership with the InjuredWorkers Alliance of Canada. Notwithstanding the importance of these partnerships, this issue aims to examine a broad spectrum of employment related issues for individuals who experience mental illness, including return-to-work following acute mental illness; entering the workforce for the first time; and pathways to enhance vocational options. A significant feature of this issue is its consideration of the wideranging partnerships that have been fostered to assist with successful employment outcomes. We also sought to bring together international perspectives of these issues, with authors from Australia, Canada, England and Italy represented. The need for collaborative partnerships in mental health practices is not new. Partnership has been recognized as an important aspect of clinical practice, research and implementation strategies [2]. As mental health services become further integrated within communities, partnerships with relevant community sectors will become a critical feature of implementing recovery-oriented care; especially, those related to the social determinants of health which often situate outside of the jurisdiction of health [3]. Recognition of the wealth of resources available in the community that are not formally (or financially) tied to government will be an important cornerstone of partnerships into the future. Partnerships beyond the health sector, for example, can provide important avenues for enabling vocational opportunities in education and employment. This special issue includes papers that raise education as an important, yet often neglected component of enhancing employment options [4], and present first-person accounts of return to education and employment [5,6]. Partnerships for diverse contexts are illuminated, including in supporting return-to-work [7]; in social firm development to increase employment options and sustainability [8–10]; in bridging the effects of geography, distance and limited human resources to provide employment services and supports [11]; in enabling volunteering as a pathway toward employment [12]; and in research with people experiencing mental illness and within the organizational context of work [13,14]. Krupa and Carter [4] raise the importance of education to improve employment options for people who experiencemental illness. They describe a unique partnership between Queen’s University and the Frontenac School Board in Kingston, Ontario, which has cultivated a supported employment program that fosters both degree completion and career development. Krupa and Carter further identify the importance of partnership to bridge the various sectors involved in facilitating the employment of persons with mental illness in Canada. Ben’s story [5] then provides a thoughtful reflection from personal experience with an Australian supported education program and of its importance in the process of recovery. A university student when he became unwell, Ben describes a variety of partnerships forged within a self-directed education program for people experiencing mental illness. As Rinaudo and Ennals put it, “in a quantitative analysis of supported education, where outcomes are measured by course completion and employment, Ben would simply be a positive statistic. Sharing his story in this case study format brings that positive statistic to life and highlights the significance of education and employment in his experience of recovery.”