| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺北大學 === 社會工作學系 === 104 === The purpose of the study is to investigate the effect of social ties on the employment process of persons with chronic mental illnesses. Some foreign research has pointed out that the strong ties of those with chronic mental illnesses pose a great influence on their employment processes. After entering the workforce, they receive more and more help from the weak ties. Besides, some previous studies in Taiwan found that psychiatric rehabilitation service, including community psychiatric rehabilitation, may help persons with chronic mental illnesses obtain employment. However, only a few studies have explored how social ties influence the employment process of those with chronic mental illnesses with a quantitative approach. Therefore, the current study adopts a qualitative method to investigate the influence of social ties on the employment process of those with chronic mental illnesses.
There are seven persons with chronic mental illnesses who are currently employed have participated in the study. Three major findings have found in this study. First, the strong ties (e.g. family, friends) and the psychiatry professionals (e.g. psychiatrists) are the main social ties in early onset psychosis. Second, when their symptoms are controlled, three ways were employed to find a job, including employment services, social relationship, and finding a job by themselves. Helping by different social ties (e.g. friends, employment specialists), persons with chronic mental illnesses have better choices to obtain a job and smoothly adapt themselves in the employment environments. Finally, when their jobs are getting stable, the social ties will undergo three stages：restructuring, expansion, and feedback. The social ties will show a “Positive feedback circle”, and facilitate the recovery processes of the chronic mental illnesses.
This study proposes four suggestions. (1) For those with chronic mental illnesses, stable medication and social participation are recommended. (2) For social services workers, using the strength perspective to assess and treat the clients, and improving the “relationship-based skills” in the service are recommended. (3) For social policy makers, three advices are proposed: the collaboration of mental health system, social welfare system, and labor system; the building of community mental health system; and the encouragement of the establishment of employee assistance program (EAP) by the enterprises. (4) For the public, eliminating the fear of psychosis is encouraged. And, listing and company to families and friends who have chronic mental illness is very important.
Finally, two recommendations are given to future studies: (1) Opinions from genders should be included. (2) In order to get comprehensive phenomena of the employment process of persons with chronic mental illnesses, social-tie-based qualitative approaches are suggested.
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