Not For Lack of Trying: Barriers to employment and the unrealized potential of psychiatric survivors living in boarding homes
In 2009, the Ontario Council of Alternative Businesses (Now called Working for Change) led a community based research project in partnership with Habitat Services and funded by the Wellesley Institute (WI). The aim of this project was to engage Habitat tenants, both as researchers and as participants in focus groups, to provide qualitative evidence regarding tenant employment. In addition to building the capacity of Habitat Services as an organization using qualitative research to promote recovery, this project also provided transferable skills to five tenants living in Habitat funded homes through training as research assistants. Through the facilitation of five focus groups, this project gathered feedback from approximately fifty individuals living in boarding homes on the topic of employment. The research found that while an overwhelming number of tenants want to work, they are confronted with a number of systemic and personal barriers. This report seeks to highlight the potential – realized and unrealized – of psychiatric survivors living in boarding homes as well as to inform the community development sector through engaging tenants in a grassroots, participatory manner.
To read Not For Lack of Trying: Barriers to employment and the unrealized potential of psychiatric survivors living in boarding homes click here to download the full report.
