Touchstone works in partnership with Leeds Mind and Community Links to support individuals to achieve their employability goals. All clients are referred to the Touchstone worker via the community mental health teams in Leeds where the Employment Specialists are co-located.
Touchstone has one allocated worker a Mental Health Employment Specialist who offers a client centred approach to identifying Employment, Training and Education goals through one-to-one and Group work.
The Employment Specialist may also support the individual to access sessions that support a client to maintain their wellbeing while exploring routes back into work (e.g. confidence building, assertiveness and anxiety management sessions to name a few).
The employment specialist works in partnership with local volunteering, education establishments and employers to source and identify opportunities for a client to engage in. They develop employability-building capacity for clients to access interventions that are tailored to their personalised employability goals, passions or interests as a way of starting out on this journey to return to work.
The Employment Specialist can also offer ongoing support to clients who return to work, as this can be a challenging time for anyone returning to the workplace.
The workers have supported clients in the past into roles such as cleaning, construction and as a self-employed mobile hairdresser.
We are pleased to welcome Mick Howard to the role of Mental Health Employment Specialist as of July 2016.
Touchstone Annual Review 2015-2016
