July 18, 2008 : Employment of Persons with Mental Disabilities
Training Report - Vocational Rehabilitation Course 2008
Today the participants visited Social Welfare Corporation JHC Itabashi. It aims to promote independence and social participation of persons with mental disabilities. JHC stands for Joint (cooperation, sharing, interaction), House (base), and Cosmos (harmony). They run 9 facilities and today the participants visited three of them: San Marina, Akatsuka and Cosmos.
Lecture material :
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JHC Itabashi
Community Support through Participation and Cooperation of All Members
- JHC Itabashi's Journey - -
Social Welfare Corporation JHC Itabashi
Community Activity Support Center “Space Peer”
First visit was San Marina. San Marina is a clubhouse established in 1992 and it aims to promote self-help activities of persons with mental disabilities. One of the committee members is its director, and so he accompanied the participants all day through.
San Marina is located right in the middle of a busy local shopping street. So, some participants got attempted to shop for bargains on its way.
As soon as the participants arrived at San Marina, they observed the morning assembly. In this meeting, the members who are persons with mental disabilities, check their health and emotional conditions and confirm what they plan to do on that day. Staff members, who are qualified social workers, nurses etc. are there to support the members when necessary. Then the participants received the explanation about the development of JHC Itabashi from two members.
You can learn more about clubhouse at website of International Center for Clubhouse Development ( http://www.iccd.org/article.asp?articleID=3)
The participants had lunch at San Marina. It was prepared by members of San Marina. The menu is decided by the members in charge and shopping and cooking is all done by them too. All the participants enjoyed the delicious lunch.
In the afternoon, the participants moved from San Marina to Akatsuka using public transportation. Unfortunately it started raining heavily and by the time they got to Akatsuka, they were all soaked wet. But they are warmly welcomed by all the staff of Akatsuka.
Akatsuka is located in a center of a quiet residential area. It aims to promote employment of persons with mental disabilities through production and sales of confectionary such as cakes and cookies and also operation of cafe. Through these activities, the persons with mental disabilities can interact with people in a community. The second visit in the afternoon was Cosmos. It is also a facility which aims employment promotion of persons with mental disabilities. Cosmos operates a restaurant and also food delivery services. They prepare about 70 lunch boxes a day. As both Akatsuka and Cosmos provides social skill training an important part of their activities, such as communication skills, health control, daily living skills etc.
By the end of the visit, it stopped raining. The participants learned about how people with mental disabilities could live and work in a community with a support in a community.
