Richmond Fellowship Barnet provides time limited employment advice, vocational training and work placement opportunities for people with mental health problems.

Our primary aim is to support our service users into voluntary or paid employment - whether through competitive recruitment or specific initiatives which focus on job seekers from disadvantaged groups. To ensure our client group is able to compete for jobs on a level playing field in future, we also challenge stigma and discrimination through all aspects of our work.

This page gives an overview of the services we offer, eligibility criteria, and referral methods.

Our trained and experienced employment advisors use a person-centred approach to support clients to understand their current barriers to work and, through regular action planning, access the most appropriate services available to overcome these and progress towards their individual goal. Every service user has a dedicated employment advisor who provides them with careers information, advice and guidance, motivational support and managed referrals to: (i) in-house and external training and work experience; and (ii) other specialist support services.

It has long been thought that encouraging people to access mainstream services as soon as practicable aids recovery. However, where service users are at a stage where this might be detrimental to their recovery, we provide a supportive environment in which they can engage in vocational training and work experience as a springboard into mainstream employment and/or further education.

Our Office and Print Service Bureaux offer up-to-date facilities, accredited training and time-limited work placements in IT (internet, word processing, spreadsheets, databases) reception, administration, desktop publishing, digital printing, graphic and web design. Generally clients attend one or two days per week for an initial three month period, with regular reviews being conducted to assess progress and provide individualised support, after which a further placement period may be agreed.

Our Assertiveness and Preparation for Work courses provides clients with the ability to self-determine their readiness for mainstream employment and identify their employment goals. Following the course, clients can be allocated an Employment Advisor if they wish to seek employment.

Our Employment Advisors provide a twice-weekly job club and Career Planning and Making Applications course to service users who are actively job searching. The advantages of our group work sessions are that service users gain experience of working with different employment advisors just as they will need to adapt to the different working styles of colleagues in the workplace and receive support, encouragement and feedback from their peers.

We work in partnership with Barnet College's dedicated mental health team to provide functional skills training on-site in Literacy, Numeracy and ICT.

People with mental health problems can and do progress within employment. But we think they face greater challenges in securing employment than non-disabled job seekers. One of the biggest barriers is lack of recent work history. This has a negative impact on a client's confidence and self-esteem and makes it difficult to demonstrate their current competence and commitment to prospective employers. In addition to supporting clients through competitive recruitment we also work in partnership with local employers to overcome these disadvantages by setting up valuable work experience opportunities in the form of: (i) time-limited work placements; and (ii) work trials (as an alternative to competitive recruitment). To date, we have successfully worked with: Barnet, Enfield & Haringey Mental Health Trust, Marks & Spencer, Waitrose, Snappy Snaps, Community Focus and a wide range of other local voluntary sector organisations.

We want to ensure that the outcomes our service users achieve are sustainable. This means providing ongoing support for up to a year after they enter work or further/higher education. Again, this assistance is tailored to individual needs but encompasses email/telephone and face-to-face guidance on a range of issues including workplace etiquette, rights and responsibilities, mental health management and soft skills development (e.g. time management, team working, decision-making and problem solving).

For service users who are not at a stage in their lives where they are able to make significant progress towards voluntary or paid employment, we have an integrated day service. This offers meaningful work-based, social and creative activities to aid recovery and support service users' successful integration into the wider community. For more information, contact the Activities Coordinator. Clients can attend from 0.5 days to 3 days per week.

Our core services are primarily funded by NHS Barnet Primary Care Trust and the London Borough of Barnet. For employment and training support, we are funded to work with individuals for up to 2 years, with no time limit for our day service. We welcome applications from anyone who:

• is over 18
• has a primary diagnosis of a mental health problem
• is unemployed
• has insight into their mental health; and
• is motivated to engage in the services provided

Referrals can be made by health or social care professionals or by agreed public/voluntary sector organisations. If you would like to refer someone, please contact us by phone/email for an application pack. You can also download an application/referral form.

Provided the eligibility criteria above are met, we do not automatically exclude anyone on the basis of any other considerations. The application form needs to be fully completed to enable us to determine whether ours is the most appropriate service for a potential service user at any given time. This includes an assessment of any relevant risk history, which has to be weighed against the number and experience of staff employed at our service at that time.

Where the prospective service user is not eligible, we will give you information about alternative services.

Due to the high demand for our service, it is occasionally necessary to operate a waiting list for one-to-one support from an Employment Advisor.