From A People Perspective

Marty (01:17.304)
All right, people, people today we've got an awesome episode of from a people perspective for you today. I've got Ali and Brandon from Progress Place here today. Welcome to the show.

Ali & Brandon (01:29.251)
Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for having us.

Marty (01:31.714)
Yeah, no, I'm really excited to have this conversation today. It's been a long time in the making, but I'm really excited to chat with you both. think, yeah, very quickly, maybe just kind of a quick introduction for each of you, for the listeners, and then we can go from there. Let's start with you, Ali.

Ali & Brandon (01:51.791)
Sure. Okay, so hi everyone, my name's Allie. So I'm one of the staff here at Progress Place. I have been here for 15 years, so a long time. And I also help with our employment development. So I'm really excited today to talk about, you know, our employment program and a little bit about World Mental Health Day. So thanks.

Marty (02:12.704)
Awesome. Thank you, Brendan.

Ali & Brandon (02:15.253)
And I'm Brandon. I'm a member at Progress Place Clubhouse. I've been a member since around 2017 was the first time I came. And I've been involved with various different aspects of participating in the clubhouse since then, some of which I think we'll maybe get into talking about later today.

Marty (02:35.18)
Awesome. No, thank you. And I guess at a high level, just from, for, for the folks I know Progress Place, it's near and dear to my heart for many different reasons. We've done a few different events and have been to a few of the galas previously for that Progress Place has put on. And I've worked at companies where we've had folks

Ali & Brandon (02:43.279)
you

Marty (03:03.09)
use the, the transitional employment program. And it's been an amazing experience. I feel like more, more people need to know about it. And we've got this podcast. I've got the community and, I just love to kind of share what it is that progress place is and does, but I don't work there. I don't have, I don't have the pitch down myself. And I feel like both of you could do progress place a lot more justice than me. So maybe just at a high level, could you share what progress place is and does.

Ali & Brandon (03:20.783)
You

Ali & Brandon (03:32.431)
Sure, so.

Progress Place Clubhouse is essentially a community center for people with mental illness. We offer a continuum of support, some case management, health and wellness, opportunities for social recreation. And really the core of our programming is something we refer to as the work order day. And that's where members of our community and staff work together to run all aspects of our organization. So from reporting to the funders to cooking up to 400 meals a week, as well as doing our own podcast.

So when we talk about partnership, think the kind of buzzword these days is co-design. And we've been working in this capacity since 1982. So as I said, we are a clubhouse and that's an internationally proven model with over 366 clubhouses in 33 countries. So again, we're an international model. The programming basically looks the same worldwide.

And it's really an opportunity to build hope, confidence, opportunity. And at Progress Place, we really believe that recovery from mental illness is possible when people have opportunities to be part of greater society.

Marty (04:48.13)
Amazing. No, that's just the, feels so big, right? When you, when you put it in context of the clubhouse international, the amount of, you know, 366 locations isn't anything to, to kind of like glance over or anything like that. That's, that's massive. Are there any aspects of, maybe just kind of,

Ali & Brandon (05:11.084)
Mm-hmm.

Marty (05:18.298)
You mentioned some things in terms of how this happens and, and, but I think there's a very unique aspect to it, right? That to your point where it's co-designed and every, everything is done in partnership with the members as well. And I find that really interesting and unique. don't know if, if there's any.

Ali & Brandon (05:37.615)
I'm here.

Marty (05:44.748)
Maybe could shed some more light on why that is the way it is and what you've seen from it.

Ali & Brandon (05:53.462)
I think that the partnership aspect helps strengthen our relationships with each other and helps create a place that fosters

almost a sort of self-discovery within one's own potential. So I would hope that, my hope as a member is that staff are also helping learn, grow and develop, as well as members also having the opportunities to learn, grow and develop their own skills, whether that's working in the cafe unit or whether that's out on some of the traditional employment opportunities.

Marty (06:31.278)
Okay. I've done the classic Marty thing of completely forgetting to do the ice breakers, but we, and that's almost tradition now. So we want to, you know, dial it back a bit and I'm going to jump in and make things, make things a little bit, easier to, jump into here. So, well, let's imagine, and this is a question for both of you. Take, take your time on, on it.

But let's just assume you've got like a zero calorie pass for the day. What is it that you're indulging yourselves in?

Ali & Brandon (07:08.907)
that would be really easy for me, but I think I indulge anyways. So I would have eggplant parmesan for every meal. And I would have a wide assortment of chocolates. But I won't stop there because I also would like to have some gummies.

Marty (07:20.14)
Okay. Okay.

Marty (07:27.582)
Nice, nice.

Ali & Brandon (07:35.917)
And I think I'll stop there. think that's a lot, but that would be my day.

Marty (07:39.224)
Yeah, no, that's eggplant. That's a big love for eggplant parmesan. Yeah. Where's the best, what's the best eggplant parm you've had?

Ali & Brandon (07:44.41)
It's huge, huge.

Ali & Brandon (07:49.743)
Well, my partner's mother, but she refuses to make it more than once a year, so I gotta get on that train and learn how to make some eggplant parm.

Marty (07:53.827)
Yep.

Marty (08:01.622)
makes sense. Nice. Brendan, how about you?

Ali & Brandon (08:05.431)
So I like to eat plant-based meals and I like to eat actually quite simply. So, but for me, one of the meals that really excites me is just a broccoli mushroom stir fry with tofu served with some white rice on the side, something like that. I could eat that every day and not get tired of it.

Marty (08:24.844)
Nice. Nice. That sounds actually really good. could that's what I want for lunch, actually. Whether or not I have the energy to make it for lunch is a different story. but yeah, no, nice. And, imagine for a second that, you know, all the music in the world has just disappeared, but the only you've got the opportunity to save one album or save the collection, like the collective works of, of one musical artist, which

Which artist would that be and why?

Ali & Brandon (09:01.901)
That's such a hard question.

Marty (09:03.95)
Yeah.

Ali & Brandon (09:09.655)
Okay, I'm go with, I'm waffling a bit, but I'm gonna go with bronze, first symphony. That would be the one that I would say. I have listened to that since I was a child and I keep listening to it and that would be, think the thing that I would miss for sure if it wasn't around. That's a very hard one for me. I like a lot of different types of genres in music.

Marty (09:18.785)
Okay, nice.

Ali & Brandon (09:41.869)
I don't know why, but for some reason I had a collection of records at one point and I know that I had one of the early releases of one of the Godspeed You Black Emperor albums. So that was quite a treasure for me to have because it had a special like penny in there that was like a limited edition sort of thing. So yeah.

Marty (09:58.499)
Nice.

Marty (10:08.674)
That's awesome. Which album was it? I actually have...

Ali & Brandon (10:11.791)
The one with Dead Flight Blues on it.

Marty (10:14.398)
Okay. Yeah. I've got, I don't know if you can recognize it, I've got, I've got that album, lift your skinny fists to heaven up there. So I'm a huge, huge Godspeed fan. So that's awesome. I don't usually expect folks to know who Godspeed is because they're kind of like underground, but their music's incredible. remember listening to their record for the first time. I was like 14 or 15 years old. I was in my like buddy's parents basement.

Ali & Brandon (10:23.404)
Yes, that was.

Yeah.

Marty (10:43.502)
And we got, he was, he's, he's vegetarian. So we got like our usual like cheese pizza. and he would play the drums and I would play guitar and we would play and he's like, yo, I gotta, I gotta show you this album. It's like you've never heard anything like this. I'm like, come on, man. I'm almost like, it's all just rock and roll. like, no, no, no, you haven't heard anything like this. And we just sat there and we listened to it. It was just like, wow. And it's like, yeah.

Ali & Brandon (11:07.529)
Interesting.

Marty (11:10.154)
And, and Ali for yourself in terms of like enjoying classical music, there's like an interesting, I can't, it's not classical music, Brendan. don't know how you would describe it or not, but it's definitely like, they've got songs that are like 18 minutes long and they've got like the thing that I love most about their music and Brendan, I'd love to hear your take on it. But the thing that I love most about their music is that it's just like these epic.

It starts off with like the smallest thing, like five minutes later, it's just a little bit louder and you've got more melodies coming in. And then it just becomes this like wall of really good sound. don't know. Brandon.

Ali & Brandon (11:51.095)
Interesting. And what genre of music is it? Like, how would you categorize it? That's really hard, but I describe it as like an instrumental soundscape. And I think the word epic as well is good. But yeah, I don't know how to categorize that. There can be, but it's usually quite minimal. Okay, see.

Marty (12:02.541)
Yeah.

Ali & Brandon (12:19.735)
I do like minimal. I like minimal EDM. hmm. All right.

Marty (12:22.06)
Yeah. There you go. Yeah, no, definitely an album to check out. I highly recommend it for anyone who hasn't listened if they're looking to shake things up. All right, final, final question. In terms of the silliness or the icebreakers. What was your what was your first gig ever?

Ali & Brandon (12:48.505)
first job? I know the answer to that one. I remember it really well. There's a mall where I lived at the time and there was a store there called Green Earth and it was a sort of crystal, sort of new agey, sort of

nature spiritual sort of store. had like self-help books, meditation books, CDs at the time, which had sort of meditative sort of soundscapes on them. And I ended up getting a job there. I was there for probably three weeks and then

I don't remember the details, but for whatever reason, I didn't continue working there, but it definitely left an impression on me because it was my first job and it showed me where I needed improvement. So I don't consider it to be a loss that I didn't hold that position for long. I learned from it and I learned where I needed to improve. So it helped me in the long run.

Marty (13:46.222)
Hmm.

Marty (13:55.523)
Yeah.

Marty (14:03.758)
That's a good way of looking at it as well, right? Like it's, it's, can always take something positive away from something. So yeah. I remember those stores too. Like those stores have a distinct smell. Like you go into them like, it's one of these stores. They've got the, it's always, could spend hours in those places and I do every once in a while. So, Ali, how about you?

Ali & Brandon (14:24.143)
You

Ali & Brandon (14:27.897)
So my first job was in an un-air-conditioned warehouse, hand-bombing boxes, lunches, kids. I know it's surprising, right? It was my friend's uncle, and it's where my love for Filipino food really grew, because the majority of people in the warehouse were Filipino or Filipina.

Marty (14:36.651)
You

Ali & Brandon (14:53.609)
And every Friday they would bring me lots of treats. It was a very difficult job. You know, I grew a lot of appreciation for that kind of hard work that people put in, especially the times we're living in right now in terms of affordability. Yeah, I enjoyed it. It was very hard, but I enjoyed it. Yeah.

Marty (14:56.43)
Amazing.

Marty (15:08.29)
in

Marty (15:19.052)
Nice, nice. What's, what's one thing you took away from it?

Marty (15:26.798)
that you still kind of keep with you today.

Ali & Brandon (15:29.939)
I think one of the things, and I mentioned people bringing food, is even though the work was hard, the importance of building community and teamwork, and really how that can make your workplace fun, no matter how hard the work is. So I think that's the one thing. And I think that really crosses over to kind of progress place as well, really the importance of community in people's lives.

Marty (15:38.19)
Hmm.

Marty (15:53.762)
Yeah, no, absolutely. And it's, it's a good, I think there's, I mean, as you know, it's a, don't know, normally have a normal job myself. Like I do HR and recruitment consulting, but the other big thing is the community that I run. I've got 5,000 members across North America. They're all in HR recruitment or operations and it kind of happened by accident. And now it's like what I do for a living. And what you just said there is very, very,

very true in terms of like, there's, you know, especially in HR, it's a, it's a difficult position to kind of like wrangle folks in and, try and help people achieve what they're looking for in their career, but also help the business. And it's a lot of hard conversations, tricky conversations, and people in the community have been looking for like a place to just talk about some of these things on a regular basis. And I think.

You know, building community well is, not easy either. So I, I, you know, I'd almost want to double click on, on a few questions there in terms of like how progress places has built out, community. and I guess, and that actually by nature of building community, is there like a moment or a story that really kind of sticks out in your mind in terms of how,

Ali & Brandon (16:54.959)
Mm-hmm.

Ali & Brandon (17:02.959)
Mm-hmm.

Marty (17:20.184)
you know, what life is like at Progress Place and what makes Progress Place special.

Ali & Brandon (17:30.179)
so I remember that, when I first came to Progress Place, I actually have some, a diary that is, from the time when I first started attending Progress Place. And I was just reading through some of the, stuff that I wrote in there, not like fairly recently. And, the one thing that I, I, I noticed is that,

like there was a strong sense of community right from the start, sense of belonging, a sense that I had found something that was really gonna help me progress in my life. And I think that the community aspect is, there's also a sense of,

Marty (17:58.52)
Hmm.

Ali & Brandon (18:22.529)
Like the communication is so important.

Marty (18:25.356)
Hmm.

Ali & Brandon (18:25.913)
being able to communicate effectively. And we learned some of these things here. When I first came to Progress Place, I'm coming from a place of a high level of isolation. So I was always as a younger, a young adult, I had very good communication skills. People would tell me all the time I was I would be really good at public speaking. I'm great at conversing with people. just due to the isolation and the length of time, which was years that went by,

I really lost touch with some of those, that basic skill of communication that's so fundamental in everything that comes after that. So just being able to come to progress place and slowly sort of develop that again was really important because, you know, if you can't have effective communication, that's really quote, quite a barrier to progressing forward in your life. So. Yeah.

And you know, on the topic of isolation, you know, many people with mental illness do experience periods of isolation. They do experiencing not feeling part of the community. And ProgressPrice really looks to kind of turn that on its head, right? We want to raise community within the clubhouse, but also in the greater community, right? To kind of reduce some of those feelings. But yeah.

I think, you know, we had something recently where we got a huge donation and we were, you know, so fortunate. And it was pretty amazing because I think it was like 10 skids that we had to hand bomb off a truck and the whole community came out to do it. I think we probably had 60 people and the people donating were so amazed that the community had come together to achieve this.

Marty (19:52.11)
Bye.

Ali & Brandon (20:15.341)
that hopefully we'll be getting some more donations. you know, we are a community and that's really, really important to us that people feel that they belong, right? Belonging is so important, not just belonging, but having a sense of purpose. You know, we all need a sense of purpose in our lives. And the Clubhouse, you know, really strives to provide that to people. So yeah.

Marty (20:38.701)
Mm-hmm.

No, it's interesting when you mentioned, is there like feeling belonging and feeling like, this is a place where I feel comfortable. That's kind of like an intangible thing, right? It's not like you put a sign on the wall and like, Hey, we're really welcoming and we're really friendly. And automatically you feel at ease. Like, you know, most people don't read signs anyways in the first place, but like, I guess, you know, if you think Brandon back to that moment, you know, in the first few,

Ali & Brandon (20:57.647)
Right.

Marty (21:12.59)
you know, weeks and times that you visited progress place, is there something that stood out in terms of like, what made it feel welcoming for you and what made you feel comfortable with it? And like, this is, this is going to be a good place for me.

Ali & Brandon (21:29.689)
think that being encouraged to participate was, I think, probably the most important thing because I already had inside myself a desire to try to overcome some of the challenges that I had. But without the right support, I just couldn't seem to get.

you know, out of the hole, I guess. But with some of the encouragement that I got from not only members, but also staff at Progress Place, it helped me build more confidence and self-worth. So I think it's that encouragement to, come on over and join us. You know, would you like to try out this certain project today? Would you like to participate in the kitchen unit today? Just being

just to have that idea that there might be an opportunity for me and there might be a place for me. That was enough to sort of help me to start to build my self-worth and confidence. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, I was gonna just add to that quickly. One of the reasons I was drawn to the Clubhouse model in my career, so I've been working in social services for 20 years at this point.

Marty (22:34.996)
sorry, go ahead.

Ali & Brandon (22:52.971)
always in clubhouse. I actually started my placement at a clubhouse in Mississauga, worked there and was lucky enough to come here, is we focus on people and not their illness. So the clubhouse is about wellness, not about illness. And it's about finding, know, helping people discover what their strengths are. You know, as staff, we always say we almost act like talent scouts, you know, trying to determine what is someone's strength. Yeah.

Marty (23:04.952)
Hmm.

Marty (23:19.662)
That's cool.

Ali & Brandon (23:22.231)
and really getting to build our relationships in regards to people rather than illness. And also the element of choice. The wonderful thing about the clubhouse is when you come in here, you choose how you participate. You choose which staff person you're gonna work with. And that's not something that happens in a clinical setting. And sometimes that can be really difficult for people when they first come in the door. It's confusing.

Marty (23:33.166)
Marty (23:44.91)
No.

Marty (23:49.87)
you

Ali & Brandon (23:51.019)
You have decision paralysis because a lot of the time choice is stripped away from people with mental illness. And you know, we really, we really look to give that back and hopefully, you know, see people flourish within the clubhouse and then move on to the greater community, whether that's education or employment.

Marty (24:08.526)
It's interesting because that feeling that you described, and the thing that in HR, at least a lot of times when you're talking about diversity, inclusion and belonging, there's this expression, maybe you've heard it, it's sort of like inclusion is like being invited to the party, belonging is being asked to dance, so to speak, right? And so, from what you described, Brandon, it sounds like within a...

you know, a few short moments or, you know, days you realize that like, people are like asking me onto the dance floor, so to speak, the metaphorical one of like, you know, what, can I get involved? We'd like to see you get involved. that's, that's awesome. I guess in terms of, you know, one of the things, and this is sort of, you know, when I was working at a company called stack adapt,

Ali & Brandon (25:03.15)
Mm-hmm.

Marty (25:03.758)
a few years ago. That was sort of my hands on experience with with Progress Place. I'd known about them for a while. I'd been to a few of their events and knew about the programs and we had an opportunity at the office and reached out and we had someone come in and through the transitional employment program and the program was fantastic for us. For me, I didn't, you know,

It wasn't something that I oversaw, but you know, I made the introduction and we had someone from Progress Place working with us on a regular basis for quite some time, actually. And nothing but positive things about the experience. And I think in my mind, at least it's like, why don't more companies or why don't more, more people kind of like, is this hidden hidden gem of a program that's so awesome. And it goes so much further than, know, donations are great. Don't get me wrong. I think any.

any government organization or non-government organization or any charity, you know, donations are the lifeblood of what they do allows them to do what they do. but when there's so many other programs out there, it's kind of hard to, kind of just assume like as an outsider, you know, who doesn't work at a charity or, or, an organization like progress place, how it works is a mystery and you don't really think about it. Right.

But then when you get to know on it and you know, double click on, on what happens and what goes on, you're like, my gosh, I didn't know they did this and they do this and they do this and they do this. One of those, you know, long list of things that progress place does, is TPS. And I'd love to get, you know, both of your takes on, on what that is and, and, learn a bit more about it.

Ali & Brandon (26:51.407)
Sure. you know, Progress Place offers a continuum of supports. know, employment is often a critical component for members to feel part of the larger society and reduce isolation and poverty. mean, research shows that employment is actually a critical mental health intervention for people living with, you know, schizophrenia, bipolar, depression. And so...

The unique program that we have is called the Transitional Employment Program. And these are partnerships with companies in the community that offer us one position. That's all we ask for, one position. And the best thing about this is it's fully supported by the Clubhouse. That means the staff member is going to go in, they're going to learn the job, they're going to try do all the training for the member that comes in. Actually, can I restart that? I got it. I got it like.

Get my TE employment script in my head. Hold on.

Marty (27:51.799)
Okay.

Ali & Brandon (27:54.287)
Do you want to say something about TEY? Think about how to say it better? Anything? don't know if you can... Brandon's done a bunch of TEs. But you're gonna talk about the like what a TEP is, you? Okay, so I'm not too sure what to say then because I'll probably wait until you do your thing. until I do Yeah, and then I'll be able to comment more on my experience. Okay.

Let's start here. All right. So the Transitional Employment Program, what does it look like and what is it? So essentially they're part-time positions in the greater community. We work with quite a few employment partners. And what we look for is entry-level positions that are routine and predictable. So typically like three to four main job duties.

When we're looking at those positions, you should be able to pick anybody out of the general population. They should be able to learn the job within three to four days. Now, the benefit to employers, and there's quite a few, is that they have a position that's fully covered. So that means the clubhouse staff will come in. They can develop the position. Whether an employer already has a position in mind, or we can actually work with a department

carve off certain tasks to kind of free the department up to do things that are more critical. And then from there, staff develop, they come in, they learn the job, we negotiate, and then we're gonna bring a member in. So the thing with transitional employment is a member comes into that job and it lasts six to nine months in duration, and then we're gonna bring another member in.

And as we know, a huge barrier to employment for people with mental illness is a competitive interview process. So a lot of members who come into the program don't have work experience. As we know, mental illness really tends to hit in people's formative years when they're deciding on career or going into higher education. And a lot of other employment programs really do have these competitive barriers.

Ali & Brandon (30:08.781)
So we seek with the transitional employment program to remove that. So here at the clubhouse, as we spoke about, we work side by side with people and that's kind of part of our recruitment. So we're working with people side by side every day. We know who's gonna be a good fit for certain jobs. So from there, we would bring the member in, the staff would do all the training. We would do weekly to bi-weekly visits to monitor productivity.

Marty (30:20.728)
Mm-hmm.

Ali & Brandon (30:37.505)
we want to make sure that this is a win-win. So what we always say to employers, real work, real pay. Our job is to meet the employer's expectations. And then the other thing that we also offer, which does help employers in terms of their ability to cross-train is if for some reason a member wasn't able to make it to their position, whether they had a cold or they just weren't feeling well that day,

the staff member would actually come in and cover the job. So no absenteeism. So you don't have to worry about trying to find someone to fill that position. We really try and make it as easy as possible for employers to implement this, right? They can be as hands-off as they need to be. And you know, we've been very fortunate. We've had some really long-term relationships with a lot of our employers. And you know, it's interesting because they'll say, you know,

I was a little concerned coming in, but now I've recognized that Progress Place members are the most dedicated employees that we have.

Marty (31:44.014)
wild. That's a huge, that's a huge statement to get from a company.

Ali & Brandon (31:45.007)
Yeah.

Ali & Brandon (31:50.276)
Mm-hmm.

Marty (31:56.43)
How?

Marty (32:02.976)
If, if, you know, out of this guy, bunch of, you know, TE opportunities landed, like, would you, would you want to limit it? Or it's like, bring us all the jobs you can kind of thing. No, for the, for the folks listening to the podcast, right. And you're like, okay, well, mental health day is coming up and I want to recognize it in the company as, as most HR folks do. They're always keeping an eye on.

Ali & Brandon (32:16.143)
you

Marty (32:32.428)
what days are coming up to ensure that those days are being observed and recognized. And, when, when it comes to that, you know, again, kind of going back to like donations, right? That's just the, the, the easy, easy way, but in terms of like taking action, a lot of times, especially in the community, right? The community, we're sort of like Reddit, basically we're just like a Slack, a Slack.

channel is a big part of the community. do events and we do courses and all this other stuff, but the sort of like main part of the community is this Slack group. And a lot of times in the Slack group, we've got folks saying, Hey, I want to do something for X this, this particular day, but I don't want it to just be a donation. I don't want it to just be this like symbolic gesture that is just money exchanging hands. And you know, we get a

Ali & Brandon (33:14.735)
Mm-hmm.

Marty (33:27.342)
and then we're done kind of thing or they send us like a gift or something like that, right? And so the TEP program is sounds is a very actionable way to say, hey, we're actually doing something for not only our employees, but people in the mental health community, helping them get employment and to, know, again, you know, as part of HR and recruitment.

having that sort of lens, like removing the barrier of, a competitive interview process so that people get work experience, which is, you know, it's hard enough for people to get jobs, even though they have experience in other countries, for example. they have a difficult enough time, you know, if when you have a gap in your resume or something like that, that becomes even more difficult. And so for progress place to say like,

Ali & Brandon (34:19.202)
Right, yeah.

Marty (34:21.558)
No, we'd like, we've worked with this person. This person is part of the community. And I think that's one of the other things that folks don't necessarily understand or think much about. And it's not their fault necessarily, but if you think about it, you know, every, and, and Brandon, I'd love your take on this, but like every member of the community, isn't just like showing up and hanging out. Like you're helping run the community. You're helping run progress place as well. I I'd love.

Ali & Brandon (34:44.889)
the community.

Marty (34:49.614)
If you could sort of like paint a picture of that.

Ali & Brandon (34:52.464)
The efficacy of the program, I think, speaks for itself. So once again, like just the feeling of self-empowerment is and sense of community is wonderful to have. So I guess there's two things. There's the work out the clubhouse and then there's the TEPs. when I first started,

I didn't really, I just knew that I was ready for a new challenge and that challenge was to try to go out into the workforce again and do something that I never thought I would do again because initially I had kind of, the situation I was in, I sort of said, well, I think I'm probably done with employment for the rest of my life. I, know, there.

I thought I was a done deal. I didn't think I was ever going to work again. But doing these TEPs, it showed me that I do have what it takes to make it, but I just need the right supports to get there, which Progress Place offers. And I didn't know as well, there's these four categories, the TEPs, the group employments, the supported employments.

Marty (35:49.859)
Hmm.

Ali & Brandon (36:13.389)
And then independent employment, which are the sort of, they don't necessarily need to go in that order. And maybe if I can elaborate on these later. there's transitional, which is just a transitional employment. There's a group employment, which is when you're doing like a TP, but it's with more than one person, it's with a group of people. Supported would be you're almost doing your own independent employment.

But you still, it's, believe that, Ali correct me if I'm wrong, but the connection is facilitated through Progress Place and Progress Place is there to help you with any help you might need to maintain that employment. And then independent is you've gone out and you found your own job. after doing some employment, some TEPs group, I've done two, I've done traditional employments and group employments.

Marty (36:53.048)
Right.

Ali & Brandon (37:05.943)
And I actually, around the time of the pandemic, I actually went out and did my own independent employment. So that's why I kind of said the efficacy of the program, because there is like a method to what's going on. it does work. It's kind of, I've gone through the process and I know it's very effective, this program. It really does help people. I don't know if Ali has any more to comment. No, I mean, really the transitional employment program.

is really to offer a bridge back into the workforce for members. It allows them to add to their experience, build confidence and establish current work references, which we know everybody needs to move on. So it's really a stepping stone back into the workforce. And that's why it's so supported by the Clubhouse and the Clubhouse staff. Each of our employers currently, they dedicate an entry level position to us and those partnerships.

we hold very close to our heart because we recognize how hard it is to get any type of employment, to be honest, with our high unemployment rate. Yeah. And really, employers gain dedicated, productive employees, and Progressplace members acquire worthwhile skills and opportunities. So, yeah.

Marty (38:30.186)
One of the, and it was sort of mentioned in terms of like the challenges of needing support, right? And so there's tiers and you know, as you go through these different tiers of the program, one of the questions that comes up in the community sometimes is an HR person will have someone who says that they're struggling with mental health and they don't necessarily have the resources available to them or knowledge just, you know,

for lack of like they've never encountered it as a company or as a, as a, you know, it's not being broadly talked about, which is, you know, a challenge for mental health in the first place. And so when these challenges come up, members of our community will reach out to the community and say, Hey, what have you done to help, you know, support folks that have, reached out or, you know, convided in, you know, their HR person or, know, their manager saying, Hey, I need some more support and whatnot. And so it sounds like

Ali & Brandon (38:58.381)
Mm-hmm.

you

Ali & Brandon (39:06.212)
Mm-hmm.

Marty (39:25.688)
there could be some sort of like parallels between, you know, what progress place does, but are there sort of, I guess, things that employers could think about, that is like less obvious that, HR folks sort of could keep in mind that are just simple ways that they can support their employees from a mental health perspective.

Ali & Brandon (39:52.419)
So great question. So in the past few years, we've really noticed that a lot of employers are creating their own mental health strategies. And I think that's something really important for people to be looking at, that they have some sort of strategy. As we know, one in five people will be affected by mental health issues across the lifetime. So that's a significant number of people.

So how are we showing that we're dedicated to that? Are we having conversations? Are we putting things in place for World Mental Health Day, for Mental Illness Awareness Week? And also, you know, if we talk about transitional employment and having members in a company, you know, if you have, you know, employees who are struggling,

And maybe they're unsure if they want to bring something up. And then they recognize that the company is supporting a program like Progress Place and transitional employment. You're already going to feel like you might be able to open that door. So I think just expanding on that type of support and really putting together a strategy. I touched on something I wanted to comment on earlier, and that's the importance of communication again, just communication for both parties as well, just to.

Marty (41:14.198)
And, and yeah, and it's interesting because even in the interview process, they're like by nature of being a recruiter myself, it's like, yeah, you can have all these skills in the world. You could be the best software developer or you could be the best sales manager or whatever. Right. But if you don't have good communication skills, then that's like the key thing that we all share as human beings. And it's, it's key to, to be, to, to have and to, to like,

work on and build out.

Ali & Brandon (41:46.207)
Your question was relating to mental illness. So I was specifically wanting to highlight just the importance of communicating. I think the question was asked, how do we better support people with mental illness? And just communication is really important that we're able to communicate.

Marty (41:48.514)
Mm-hmm.

Marty (42:04.142)
Mm-hmm.

Ali & Brandon (42:12.159)
if there's something going on like that someone's struggling with to just be, you know, be able to recognize what someone's going through and try to connect them with the right supports.

Marty (42:24.13)
Yeah. Having, having a sense of empathy towards the individual and being able to, to your point, right? Like communicate with them about, about it. And it, it's, it's definitely, I would say that's at least from my perspective, one of the more frustrating things about the work, like how organizations typically work is that people oftentimes won't.

won't, won't share that they have it for completely valid and fair reasons. And so I think the tip for me to even just kind of let that point sink in on my own is what you're saying is that by supporting programs like the TEP program and just being active and finding something that the company can do during, you know, world mental health day or mental illness awareness week is.

Ali & Brandon (43:02.436)
Take care.

Marty (43:22.988)
making it so that people who might be struggling silently or quietly feel a little bit safer to say, Hey, you know what? might be a bit more open about this with my manager directly or, whomever so that they can get the support they need within the organization. Right. That's the organization's way of sort of showing to the rest of the company. They're like, Hey, we care about this. And if the company's not doing it and they do want to support them, then that's

Ali & Brandon (43:46.839)
Yeah.

Marty (43:52.088)
You know, that's it. That's the first easy thing that a company can do to kind of tackle that. No, that's, that's helpful to know.

Ali & Brandon (43:59.563)
100%. You know, we've heard from employers that, you know, the Transitional Employment Program has really helped to break down stigma overall, right? And that's really what it's about. And, you know, a lot of people will have internalized stigma. They're afraid to speak up. They're afraid that people are going to think you're not able to do your job or you're not motivated enough. So all the stigma is floating around. So being able to actively show

that you're supporting mental health with the Transitional Employment Program, I think is, you know, it's a lot different than just talking about mental health. It's putting your boots to the ground and showing that you really are dedicated and that you want to be given opportunities. And I think that really does help to open the doors.

Marty (44:46.862)
One of the things about HR is it's a people oriented profession and that can be draining for HR people. saw it through the pandemic. You know, the HR was the last sort of department, the department that took on, okay, we have to figure out all these new ways of operating as a business. by nature of, you know, progress place and the community you serve, there's also, you know, I can only imagine

Ali & Brandon (44:52.121)
Mm-hmm.

Ali & Brandon (45:08.023)
Yeah.

Marty (45:16.78)
you know, the challenges that, know, anybody, not only, staff, so to speak, but members as well, because members are helping run progress place. So when, guess the question is when, when things are getting challenging and what, what areas do you go to for sort of hope and motivation and, and to keep going, to, keep doing what you're doing.

Ali & Brandon (45:42.243)
Mm-hmm.

For myself, it's the resiliency of the members is really what keeps me going day to day. If we speak about the pandemic, unfortunately, our doors were open and closed a few times, but we didn't stop our programming. So we quickly pivoted to Zoom and provided the club hosts online.

We also made sure to connect people who didn't have access to wifi or who didn't have a computer. We were able to provide those. We also ran our meal program. We were making, I think it was 400 meals a day at one point, not only to support just our community, but to support the greater community. And we did have a limited number of members coming into the clubhouse during that time. So I think there was 10 of us making 400 meals, members and staff.

And that's resiliency, right? It's seeing people, you I've worked with members who, you know, he said, hey, like, you know, think, you know, transitional employment might be something for you. And they've turned around and said, my doctor said I should never work, but I'm never going to be able to work ever again. Right. And this is the messaging that people are getting.

And so to see people kind of take that chance and to see people flourish, I I couldn't ask for anything more out of a job. And yeah, I think there's some challenging times, you know, right now coming out of COVID, unfortunately. You know, we have lost a lot of our transitional employment positions, mostly because, you know, not all companies have put a return to work policy in place. And that's greatly impacted us.

Ali & Brandon (47:34.303)
But because we've seen how the transitional employment program has impacted not just one person, but hundreds and hundreds of members, even though it's been quite hard recently, you know, we're still moving forward and trying our best to offer these opportunities. yeah. I think what Ali just touched on was just the empowerment that the support at Progress Place provides members.

Marty (48:01.134)
Awesome.

Ali & Brandon (48:02.263)
Yeah, I think too with, you know, World Mental Health Day, which is on October 10th, the theme is really about mental health in the workplace. And Clubhouse International has kind of an offshoot of that, which is Equity Works. And really when we think about it, that equity is really the key to recovery. You know, as a clubhouse, we really aim to advance equity and address address inequality through the workplace.

and through society and that's really where our transitional employment program comes in. It's a really, you know, it's an ask, but a lot of the time it's just a really easy thing to implement and we try to make it as easy as possible. So, yeah.

Marty (48:44.525)
Hmm.

Marty (48:51.566)
You mentioned stigma earlier and, you know, just in society, there's a lot of stigma around mental health in the first place. But with a program like this, you know, there's all these amazing benefits. think, you know, progress place being a progress place, probably, you know, best is there is the, there's still not only stigma just in general, but there's stigma to hiring someone who suffered from mental illness. I guess.

Ali & Brandon (49:17.835)
Mm-hmm.

Marty (49:20.856)
How are you, you know, if, I'm someone listening and I do have that in the back of my mind, maybe I'm all bought in, you know, and conceptually, and like, this is something I want to do, you know, unfortunately stigma comes into play at, some point, how is that typically being addressed? And, you, the, yeah, I'll just leave it at that. Yeah.

Ali & Brandon (49:43.651)
I think it's a great question. So we're talking about stigma, especially when it comes to people who are potentially looking at the transitional employment program. For us, it's about having those open conversations and kind of addressing some of those stigmas that people might not be willing to ask. There is a myth that people with mental illness are violent or dangerous. And the truth of the matter is that people with mental illness are actually statistically

Marty (49:54.136)
Mm.

Ali & Brandon (50:13.825)
more often victims of violence than the opposite. And then the other thing we discussed is, you know, this is a recovery model, the Clubhouse, and when we're bringing people out to our transitional employment sites, they are further along in their recovery, right?

We want this to be a win-win and we take our partnerships very seriously that we would never put an employer in a situation where they would have to deal with something that they weren't comfortable with. And you know, we are on site.

at least once a week. We're monitoring productivity. We're making sure there's no interruption in workflow. And we're also making sure that the member is getting the support that they need. The great thing about the clubhouse is that we're open 365 days a year. We never close. Even on, you know, major holidays, we are always open and we're always there to support members. So even if people are off working, they're always coming back into the clubhouse and are able to check in.

So, you know, we make sure that we cover all our bases. We also have really strong relationships with our members. We know them, right? Members are open with us. If they're not feeling great, they're going to tell us and we're going to work on a plan. You know, we do all the back end so that, you know, really we don't ever want anybody to be worrying about that.

Marty (51:36.174)
That sounds, mean, and this isn't, this isn't some new program that's just been launched. Like it's been around for quite some time. So I imagine it's gone through a bunch of iterations and improvements and whatnot. and from the sounds of it and from, from what I've seen, it works. Right. I guess to kind of close things out here, you know, what, what can listeners do to.

support progress place and its mission. And especially with World Mental Health Day coming up, you know, we've talked about a few things, but maybe just to circle back on that and just sort of like, you know, go through each of those things.

Ali & Brandon (52:22.735)
Anything you want to start with?

The question is what can people do to help members here? Yeah, to help Progress Place. To help Progress Place? Well, think Progress Place accepts monetary donations. I know that there's opportunities for donation in terms of if you are a business as well. like to probably comment on more of the details because we do have

clothing that's available to members here at a discounted rate from businesses that are out in the community.

Ali & Brandon (53:04.783)
Ali, did you have any? Yeah. So I think, you know, what we're really looking for is opportunities. You know, I think, you know, as you mentioned earlier, monetary donation is great, but the long-term effect of that is not as strong as opportunities for employment. So basically what we're looking for is opportunities and they start with the conversation.

And that's all we're asking for is let's have a conversation. Let us you exactly what we can do and you can let us know if we're a good fit. So that's really how the ball starts rolling.

Marty (53:36.142)
Yeah, if you thought about it.

Marty (53:47.128)
Then you build these programs in partnership. It's not like here's the cookie cutter solution that, you know, every company gets take it or leave it kind of thing. It's more of like, how can we work together to make this work?

Ali & Brandon (53:58.029)
You got it. You got it because Clubhouse is all about partnership and that applies to our employment partners as well, right? We want to co-design and meet your needs. So, you know, it's not a lot of people initially when they hear they feel like they have to do a lot of work, right? And this is more of a headache, especially in HR. This is going to be more of a headache for me, but it is going to benefit me.

And once we have that conversation and go through kind of our main points, like these, we're going to fill your entry level jobs, right? You're not going to have to worry about them. You're not going to have to worry about training, recruitment. We're going to take care of all of that. You're not going to have to worry about anybody missing a day. You're always going to have coverage, right? And you're going to have the opportunity to see members thrive because it's transitional. Members work the position six to nine months. We're going to bring the next person in.

Right? And you know, sometimes, you know, in that first six months, people are like, they want to keep our members, right? Because they've done so well. But really, it's that member's time to try something else. And they've really gotten all they need to get out of that position and we can bring more people in. And, you know, it's so nice because employers become just as invested as the clubhouse and seeing a member's success. Right? So really,

Marty (55:17.026)
Yeah, it can be a part of the journey.

Ali & Brandon (55:19.695)
100%. So really it starts, it really does start with a conversation. You know, what are your business needs? Is there gaps that you need to fill? Do you have some of your employees doing work that maybe they shouldn't be doing and they should be concentrating on some other things? And we can really go in and have that conversation. We can carve off tasks. We definitely try our best to make it worthwhile for everyone. So.

Marty (55:44.952)
that that makes me think of sort of the operations side of the business. Because the community, you know, the people people group is HR recruitment and operations. And what I find is operations and HR work together a lot of the time, because they play such a close role together in supporting somebody starting at a new company, right? recruitment finds the people, and they're like, cool, we found somebody and then HR like, says, cool, we're gonna help onboard them. And then we're gonna work with

with the operations team and most of the community, know, large, a large chunk of the community is typically sort of like that 50 to 250 person organization where not only is your HR person, you know, helping onboard employees, helping, you know, post jobs and do some of the recruiting. It's sort of like this catch all department or person. sometimes

Ali & Brandon (56:32.015)
Mm-hmm.

Marty (56:39.342)
You know, the one thing I hear from our community members all the time is like, I've got so much on my plate all the time. And, sometimes they're being left with, you know, like, okay, well, we have an office to take care of as well. And, you know, the rooms need to be set up in a certain way before every meeting with clients and all these sorts of things. And I think in terms of like the audience and our community and, you know, roles that they can kind of think of to reach out to progress place for.

Ali & Brandon (56:44.111)
Mm-hmm.

Ali & Brandon (56:56.879)
keep going.

Ali & Brandon (57:08.239)
Mm-hmm.

Marty (57:08.91)
The one that's baked into my mind because it's the one that I experienced myself was we had somebody come in and they came in for a few hours every day and they just tidy things up after, after lunch to help ensure that, you know, the employees would have like a nice area to join and, you know, chat with each other and kind of build their own community when the organization. And we would see the members sit down and they were a part of the team and company as well. And they would build relationships with members.

Ali & Brandon (57:12.099)
Yeah.

Marty (57:38.732)
of the company as well. guess the question is like, apart from that, are there other, like, what are some things to kind of get, you know, a listener's brain kind of percolating on like, what role could we, you don't necessarily need to wait for an entry level role. If you've got people doing things that you could create a position for if it made sense, but it also served some good as well. What

Ali & Brandon (58:04.857)
Mm-hmm.

Marty (58:05.038)
kinds of tasks or what other kind TEPs have you seen work really well in sort of like maybe the smaller organization?

Ali & Brandon (58:13.614)
Great question. So yeah, we do, you know, a lot of the times we will work in partnership and a lot of the time that's with operations to be honest, in terms of carving off some of those tasks. So mail rooms are great places for us to start. We've had quite a few mail room jobs with a lot of the, you know, the big law firms in the city. So things like, you know, delivering the mail.

organizing, inputting, data entry, scanning, all that kind of stuff. So, know, kind of the stuff that sometimes employees don't want to do. They don't have three hours out of their day to be able to scan documents. That's a perfect position for us. Also, when you touched on this, catering. So a lot of our jobs...

Marty (58:54.926)
Yeah.

Ali & Brandon (59:04.431)
are around catering. So that means, you know, we're going to the kitchenettes, we're making sure the dishes are clean or put into the dishwasher, we're restocking snacks, we're setting up areas for boardrooms. So really, we're looking at that, again, three to four main job duties that are routine and predictable. And that's really, really where we excel. Anything else? You've done a ton. So if anything, I'll tell you. I am one of the the sort of

positive things of Progress Places, that Progress Places really tries to facilitate people's and work with people's unique skills and talents. So for example, your questions were kind of relating to the employer and the relationship to the, you know, the member working at TEP. And I would just say that one of the things that I really enjoyed was to see the structure.

of how a certain TEP was done in that instead of, I mean, you could have one person work this TEP full time, or you could have two individuals work it.

with a rotating shift. it would not be a full-time role, it would be a part-time role. And I just mentioned the unique skills and talents earlier because that's something that everyone's at different skill levels, everyone's at a different place in their life. There's no one way one size fits all. Everyone's going to be different. But just so for someone that's not ready for full-time work, just to have the opportunity, especially to have the opportunity during

during the nine to five day during those hours to work like a five hour work shift rather than an eight hour work shift for full time. That's a wonderful opportunity to have and really allow someone the sort of set up for success actually. And I think that's a great point because often when we meet with employers when we're talking about part time, they'll say, well, we don't have a part time position. And we say, we get it.

Marty (01:01:03.767)
Yeah.

Ali & Brandon (01:01:06.389)
So do you have a full-time position? And a lot of the time they'll say, yeah, we actually do. No problem. We can split that position into two. We'll do all the legwork in terms of breaking down that job description. You don't even have to worry about us. Give a staff two weeks in your department working the full-time role, and we're going to present you with two transitional employment opportunities. So we get creative, right? We need more jobs.

but we need the opportunities. And so we can get creative and kind of work around those things. And we're also open to kind of learning some new things as well. It's funny because 10 years ago, maybe longer than that, 20 years ago, you wouldn't often think, is being able to use a computer an entry level skill? Well, it is, right? I think we all know that now. So we're kind of venturing into that side of things as well. So yeah.

Marty (01:02:03.278)
Awesome. No, the, it's funny because I've talked about this so much in other podcasts is that employers doesn't matter if you're, you know, 50,000 employees or your 20 employees for some reason, they just think in binary of like full time or part time and they don't get creative with anything. And I think because of how just the industry is going and by, you know, the,

remote work being such a, people have adjusted to remote work by nature of the pandemic and having to figure that all out. Now companies are starting to get a little bit creative and thinking outside of that, really it's a rigid box of just like either it's part-time or full-time or nothing. Meanwhile, their solution to the problem that they have is just, I'm just going to give Ali more work or give Brandon more work.

And then, and then what does that do for them? Right? It's like almost it creates a problem for them because yeah, you've got 40 hours a week, you know, 50 or whatever, if we're being realistic, 60 at some startups, right. And that's how long people are working. You add another five hours of work and maybe that work isn't as challenging or meaningful to them because they've done it or they can do it. That's not actually helpful for your workforce. That's not actually supporting the culture of your organization. So why not?

Ali & Brandon (01:03:28.175)
in just a second.

Marty (01:03:30.138)
A support your existing employee base by taking that workload off of them, not thinking so binary like, and reaching out to progress place, right? And asking them for support and say, Hey, here's a bunch of tasks that we could wish we could have other employees do, but we don't know where to go. We don't, we, we don't even know that, you know, posting of, you know, of a fractional entry level role is a thing.

Ali & Brandon (01:03:33.198)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Ali & Brandon (01:03:49.165)
Mm-hmm.

Ali & Brandon (01:03:56.495)
Mm-hmm.

Marty (01:03:58.072)
Cause often fractional is very popular. I'm a fractional HR consultant myself right now, but typically people think in terms of like fractional, terms of like senior level, like directors and leadership and that sort of thing. But we're not thinking, but it's perfectly available in other forms. And I think, you know, the T program having seen it myself and like clearly I'm a big fan of it and, and progress plays, but I guess any, any final thoughts, any final things to pay to the listeners?

Ali & Brandon (01:04:25.689)
Yeah.

Just to speak to that, we have gotten feedback when we've worked with teens and carved off some of those roles and tasks that staff morale has actually improved. So it's something to think about, right? It's an easy solution.

to kind of cast off some of those tasks that are really bearing down the team. And we've received that feedback from multiple employers that it's really helped staff morale along with busting stigma. Yeah. And then Brandon, I think has something in all. Yeah. I just wanted to bring it back to the one of the earlier questions that you asked me, which was what was my first job? And I just have something to say about that, that there's no such thing as failure. Every interaction is a learning experience.

Marty (01:05:17.088)
Awesome. No, fully, fully agree. Fully agree. And that's a really healthy way of looking at it. and I have to use that expression myself sometimes because I get pretty hard on myself sometimes and it's, I'm going to use that. So thank you. Appreciate you sharing that Brennan. Alley Brandon. Thanks for being on the show today. really enjoyed the conversation. If folks want to get in touch with a progress place, what is the best way for them to do that?

Ali & Brandon (01:05:19.823)
Mm-hmm.

Ali & Brandon (01:05:37.303)
Thanks for having us.

Ali & Brandon (01:05:46.637)
So the best way is through email. So they can email us at partners at progressplace.org and we will get that email. And again, we're just looking to have a conversation. That's always our first step. Let's have a chat and see how it might work. And if it doesn't work, maybe there's some other ways we can partner. yeah. Thank you. Thanks.

Marty (01:06:09.964)
Amazing. Thanks again, Ali, Brendan.

Marty (01:06:15.63)
Cool, we did it. We're done.

Ali & Brandon (01:06:17.679)
Thanks. Great. Thanks, Martin. Yeah, thank you. Appreciate it.

Marty (01:06:19.918)
Thank you both.