Consumer Connections and Career Connections Employment Resource Institute

The Mental Health Association in New Jersey (MHANJ) sponsors two programs, Consumer Connections and the Career Connections Employment Resource Institute, designed to help individuals with mental illness, including depression, find and keep employment as part of the recovery process. The New Jersey Division of Mental Health funds both of these programs. Consumer Connections is a comprehensive program designed to recruit, train, and support consumers of mental health services in the role of becoming providers of human services. The program has three components - an employment opportunity bank, an information and referral system for volunteer and employment opportunities; consumer provider training, an intensive fifty-hour training program; and the consumer support network (C.S.N.), a system of support for consumers to maximize their ability to succeed in the workplace. Consumers with mental illness who are interested in entering or re-entering the job market are assigned vocational counselors who provide direct individualized employment services including job matching, ongoing support services, mentoring, entrepreneurial business development, supported education and benefits planning. MHANJ is currently making efforts to include more of the TANF population in this program.

The purpose of the Career Connections Employment Resource Institute is to expand employment opportunities for persons with mental illness.

Since its inception, the program has trained over 600 people and approximately 70 percent of those individuals are working, either part-time or full-time, within the New Jersey mental health and human services system.