Tag: special needs children

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People with mental condition forced to hide illness

It takes a long time to recover and stabilise your life after being struck by a severe mental illness. You have to reconstruct your life, pay attention to basic things others take for granted, keep on a strict regimen with medicine and find motivation and meaning for your life.

After stabilisation and recovery, some people who may have embarked on a career or even completed their studies and obtained a first job before their episode may be able to find employment in the workplace.

These are often the fortunate few who have not suffered huge impairment because of their psychotic episode.

But when they try to enter the workplace, a whole new challenge begins.

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Man with mental disability finds meaning through satisfying occupation

Photo by LinkedIn Sales Navigator on Unsplash

A middle-aged man who has suffered from a bipolar condition for many years has found meaning and satisfaction in a job suited to his temperament.

For reasons of privacy the man’s name cannot be disclosed. His bipolar condition struck while he was attending university. Some time later he was able to consider what he would do as a profession. He became a sales representative for a cleaning materials manufacturer.

He has built up a strong customer base, selling to restaurants and other small businesses that require cleaning materials. He is proud of his weekly sales success and is always keenly planning his sales calls and doing his bookkeeping on weekends and ordering stock on Mondays.

Selling, one of the oldest professions, can be suited to people with mental disabilities. It requires empathy with customers and negotiation skills. Own transport is important but when the man with bipolar needs to make sales calls outside of the suburb where he lives and serves customers, then one of his parents takes him on his sales calls. He has a driving licence but because of his attention span, he prefers not to do regular driving. Sometimes when his parents are unavailable, he uses the Uber taxi service.

Even though this man with bipolar suffered severe disappointment of not being able to complete his in-residence University studies, he obtained his BComm Degree through the correspondence from the University of South Africa (UNISA).

Please remember that this type of work is best suited for someone with a mental condition who has a relatively high level of functioning. Low and medium functioning people with mental disabilities, may find it difficult or too challenging.

Should you be interested in finding meaningful opportunities for your child or a relative, please get yourself onto the email list for a special report (at no cost) that will be made available in the future. The report will cover a range of employment possibilities to support parents and other caregivers in dealing deal with this challenging issue in the lives of their loved ones who suffer from mental disabilities.

The report will cover 10 years of experience as a caregiver of a mentally disabled person and interactions with others and their experiences in finding meaningful work.

If you haven’t already read the most popular blog post on this website, “Finding business ideas for special needs children“, then here is the link. To date, almost 1000 people have read this article, making it the most well read blog post on this website in its five-year history.

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Finding business ideas for special needs children

Hartford Hospital Mental Illness Campaign
Hartford Hospital Mental Illness Campaign (Photo credit: adwriter)

It’s hard enough for any would-be start-up business owner or entrepreneur to find new business ideas in any economy but have you ever considered how hard it is to come up with business ideas for special needs children?

I know of two young men who despite their mental disabilities have come up with an idea for a small service business of their own. The business began work from very humble beginnings but slowly they have painstakingly and with much determination and ingenuity come up with a computer repair and servicing business. One of the biggest challenges is to find customers who will take them seriously and let them do the work. With no money to advertise their service, they rely on word-of-mouth advertising and making business connections in their small personal networks. Continue reading “Finding business ideas for special needs children”