Hello

This course is based on a 3-way collaboration between San Jose City College, Santa Clara County Mental Health, and Alliance for Community Care. It is client-driven rather than provider driven like touted programs for clients such as the one at the College of San Mateo run by their Counseling Dept. I’m the instructor and we have two instructional aides, one paid by County M.H., the other a volunteer, both clients and both who have previously taken this course (the regular version) with me. The volunteer is someone on this list, Phil Winn, a long-time activist and leader here who is currently Vice-Chair of the County MHB. The role of these people is ‘client culture facilitator’ (it is IN THE CONTRACT like that).

The Silicon Valley ‘New Economy’ is labor starved. There are 20K or more (depending on whom you count, how) mental health clients here. They are kept out of working not because they are the dregs of society, but due to discrimination and an attendant lack of opportunity. The Business Division of SJCC of which I’m a member sees the opportunity of developing a new source of people to train for the high-paying jobs that are out there ‘begging’. County M.H. has the Vision to recognize that preparing people for REAL JOBS in a way that actively fights against discrimination is a meaningful choice. That’s why they are paying for an instructional aide and [!] the students’ textbooks. The Alliance Voc Rehab knows that DR is channeling people into ‘supported employment’ scams that are targeted at dead-end jobs — and they are frankly eager to see a more creative approach for the people they serve.

Around the state we have a major push towards ‘recovery’, which has an appealing ring to it because we know that people are pressured into dead-end solutions and warehoused as the so-called ‘low-functioning’. The question is how to turn this into what Sylvia Caras calls transformation, the actual way forward that is respectful of our dignity and validating of our being. I am teaching my students how to change their habits and struggle against the ‘empowerment psychology’ that keeps them stuck in the hopeless ‘same-old, same-old’ of mediocre ‘treatment’ and reinforced poverty. In the Silicon Valley we are dreaming of constructing a ‘New Economy’ for the clients that will be part & parcel of the mainstream economy.

Respectfully

Andrew Phelps