Meeting on jobs cooperative plan hailed a success

A MEETING to gauge interest i n setting up a j obs cooperative for people with mental health difficulties has been hailed a success.

About 15 people, including mental health professionals and those living with mental illness, got together to discuss the idea proposed by Dundee man Alex Sandison.

Mr Sandison hopes the initiative will allow individuals who can’t work full-time to complete tasks on good days and hand over work during bad patches.

He said that now there was enough interest in the idea, he could begin sorting out the practicalities to make the scheme a reality.

Mr Sandison said: “The meeting was a success — there was a consensus that there is a genuine need for something different i n Dundee to help those with mental health difficulties.

“In total, there were about 15 people at the meeting. There were a couple of professionals who work in mental health, and they gave me some useful information and expressed an interest in helping to make the initiative happen. There were also people who said they would be interested in using such a service.

“The next step would be getting ourselves organised. We need to start communicating and getting to know each other, as well as coming up with a prototype for the service.

“We need to work out what’s involved in setting up an organisation from the practical and legal point of view, then we would need to talk t o employers who would be i nterested i n being involved, and reach out to more and more people who would want to use the service.”

It is envisaged that a job cooperative would ultimately work as an organisation that provides services to clients, just like any other business.