Friends, Family & Carers Forum

[Fyn21]

Hi

My 22 y.o son is diagnosed bipolar.  He's been doing OK in 2023 - finished a tafe Cert IV and got his drivers licence (both took a couple of years but he got there!)

He wants to work full time (now works p/t in fast food...) and I has applied for lots of jobs via Seek but no luck.  He's been let go by a couple of p/t employers in the past so is really underconfident and extremely 'flat'...so not sure how we would go in the competitive job seeking (interviews etc)

Can anyone recommend a job agency that is understanding of mental health issues?  There are heaps of agencies working with "disability" but I've heard so many stories of them just doing nothing and shuffling job seekers around to get the government $$ support for their company.

Any positive experiences or recommendations would be greatly appreciated

Many thanks

[Shiki]

Hi @Fyn21 thanks for posting !

I might need more details what does he want to do? what was his certificate in. A couple off top of my head APM, atworkAustralia, Wise Employment services. it depends on your location as every state has different agencies operating. Im sure you have already done so but have a google search employment for people with disabilities for your location and try contacting a couple to discuss the situation. We have a disability discrimination act for a reason, so applying on seek should be acceptable still and urge you to keep applying try other positions, it may be due to his experience among other things, i had a friend who graduated from university and took her 6 months to get a basic entry level role the job market currently is hard, especially when starting out. There seems to be a more who you know not what you know culture going on still which does make it hard. I urge you to contact those agencies but also don't stop applying on seek, keep at it im sure he will snag something along the way. another option you could try is seeing a career counsellor someone who can sit down with him find out where his interests are and look through his resume and fix it up to improve his chances sometime their worth the penny. hope this helps

[Fyn21]

Thanks Shiki

We're in Sydney.  His Cert IV was in Screen & Media but whilst he used to like doing short films as a teen, it's a super competitive industry and it's not necessarily a field he wants to work in full time (or even could atm we think...)

I'll suggest those places to him.  THanks 🙂

[Fyn21]

It turns out he can't access those agencies atm at least because he's not getting Centrelink payments...