1. Mental health rehabilitees’ agency construction and promotion in community-based transitional work programme
- Author
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Miira Niska, Melisa Stevanovic, Henri Nevalainen, Elina Weiste, Camilla Lindholm, Faculty of Social Sciences, Faculty Common Matters (Faculty of Social Sciences), Social Psychology, Academic Disciplines of the Faculty of Social Sciences, Helsinki Inequality Initiative (INEQ), Doctoral Programme in Cognition, Learning, Instruction and Communication, Faculty Common Matters (Faculty of Arts), Tampere University, Unit of Social Research, and Communication Sciences
- Subjects
discursive psychology ,conversation analysis ,515 Psychology ,Health Policy ,518 Media and communications ,mental illness ,3142 Public health care science, environmental and occupational health ,Issues, ethics and legal aspects ,Agency ,5141 Sociology ,Fundamentals and skills ,5200 Other social sciences ,Clubhouse ,Gerontology ,transitional work - Abstract
Purpose: The integration of mental health rehabilitees into the labour market is an important policy objective everywhere in the world. The international Clubhouse organization is a third-sector actor that offers community-based psychosocial rehabilitation and supports and promotes rehabilitees' state of acting and exerting power over their lives, including their (re)employment. In this article, we adopt the perspective of discursive psychology and ask how mental health rehabilitees' agency is constructed and ideally also promoted in the Clubhouse-based Transitional Employment (TE) programme. Methods: The data consisted of 26 video-recorded TE meetings in which staff and rehabilitees of one Finnish Clubhouse discussed ways to further their contacts with potential employers. The analysis was informed by discursive psychology, which has been heavily influenced by conversation analysis. Results: The analysis demonstrated how rehabilitees adopt agentic positions in respect to TE-related future activities, and how Clubhouse staff promote and encourage but also discourage and invalidate these agentic positionings. The analysis demonstrated the multifaceted nature of agency and agency promotion in the TE programme. Conclusions: Although ideally, Clubhouse activities are based on equal opportunities, in everyday interaction practices, the staff exercise significant power over the question whose agency is promoted and validated in the TE programme.
- Published
- 2023