Work Ready Service for Young Adults with Mental Illness

Essex County Council is commissioning a service to support individuals aged 16 to 26 years old who have experienced severe mental illness to achieve their vocational goals and aspirations. This service is in response to the disruption young adults experienced during and following Covid and the high levels of mental health illness now being experienced by young adults which is impacting on their education and employment opportunities This is a newly commissioned service, based on the data, needs and voice of people that use services who have told us that they do not get the support around their vocational aspirations when they need it due to their mental illness.

The requirements for this service are not fully prescriptive. Essex County Council would expect the successful provider to work with commissioners and crucially people with lived experience and their carers to inform the design and delivery using a robust approach to co-producing the service.

Lived experience and co-production should be at the heart of shaping the service and Essex County Council fully expects the service to evolve over the life of the contract to reflect this. The purpose of the service is to support young adults to: • Be enabled to develop the life skills necessary to access education, training or paid employment. • Build resilience and aspirations and return to school, college and/or begin training • Build confidence, self-esteem and motivation • Develop plans for how to achieve their career plans and aspirations • Build life skills such as time management, financial/budget management, organisation and team work • Become engagement ready and access other resources in the community such as youth services • In particular, the service is to provide opportunities for those individuals who may not have supportive families to guide them through finishing education and planning for work. • The service will also contribute to the delivery of the outcomes set out in the Essex Mental Health Strategy.