Thank you very much.
The piece of the Aspiring Workforce research that I'm going to focus on today is the challenges that people with mental health disabilities—those in the disability support system—face in navigating the very complex relationships between workforce participation and disability support policy. What we're seeing in Canada right now is a growing number of people with mental illness who are transitioning onto a disability income support program.
The percentage of CPPD recipients with a mental health disability increased from 12% in 1990 to 28% in 2008.
We know that up to 90% of people with serious mental illness in Canada are unemployed, and many of these are entirely detached from the labour market.
We also know that many people with mental illness do have the capacity and the desire to work. Many people with mental illness have intermittent capacity, so they can work, but perhaps only some of the time. Disability support programs could be adjusted to be more accommodating of intermittent illness. Right now, the requirement that people prove that they are in fact not able to work often creates fear in showing any capacity to work, despite the fact that many people do have the capacity and the desire.
Additionally, the rates provided by the income support programs don't always provide a decent standard of living, and the interaction among programs can create inequitable situations in which people with very similar levels of mental health disability are in fact living in very different financial situations.
Disability income program rules and their interactions with other support programs, such as housing support programs, can also cause people to actually wind up with less money and less security than if they do in fact obtain employment and work.
Reforms have been made in many jurisdictions in Canada, but in some cases they need to be better communicated. We found that people are often either unaware that rules have changed or that they don't trust the changes.
Our overarching policy recommendation is for a capacity-focused paradigm shift in which policies support individuals in their strengths, while also addressing the barriers they may face. We have several key recommendations in this area.
First, we recommend that disability support policies recognize that individuals with mental illness often have intermittent work capacity, and that the policies should provide flexibility. A good example that has in fact been recently implemented by CPPD is rapid reinstatement, which enables people who enter the workforce to quickly re-access the disability support system should they be unable to remain employed, rather than having to go through a lengthy process of re-establishing eligibility.
Second, we recommend early intervention to promote workforce engagement. People should be linked with employment supports immediately upon entering the disability support system. Early intervention should also include working with young people to ensure that their vocational trajectory is not lost and that people don't wind up graduating from high school directly onto disability support.
Third, we recommend that disability support policies seek to reduce disincentives to work. Examples of how this could be done include raising allowances for earning exemptions, establishing more opportunities to develop skills and access training, and ensuring that people with mental health disabilities who re-enter the workforce do not lose important access to prescription drug benefits and other health services.
Fourth, we recommend that policies ensure that funding is available for the development of evidence-based employment supports and training opportunities, including supported employment and social business formation. These are things that we know work.
Fifth, we recommend that people receiving disability income support be linked with case workers and other professionals whose roles extend beyond simply determining eligibility for a single program. People should have access to professionals with specific expertise in employment and also to benefits counsellors who can guide them through the intricacies of the complex impact that employment may have on the various disability supports they receive.
Sixth, we recommend that disability income support programs operate in collaboration with other stakeholders, including employment support and training programs, mental health service providers, and employers. The interactions between disability support policies and other policies, such as housing assistance policies, need to be carefully examined to ensure that unintended barriers to employment are not being created.
Seventh, we recommend innovation in disability support provision, employment support provision, and other services to develop new best practices for engaging people with mental health issues in the workforce on an ongoing basis.
Our final recommendation is that alongside reforms it's critical to develop effective communication strategies about these reforms. Reforms cannot succeed without clear communication to those individuals who are affected in order for the benefits of these positive changes to be reaped and recognized.
Thank you.