We are very grateful to the Pixel Fund for their support for Better Assembly Services (BAS) which is part of the Better Pathways Charity.
We are a Birmingham based adult mental health charity, founded over 50 years ago and our aim is to help people recover from mental illness. Having a mental illness can damage your confidence and leave you isolated, inactive and unable to take control of your life. Returning to employment is often a major problem. We address these issues by providing activities, work experience, training and employment support.
BAS is a unit within the charity and comprises a packing and assembly and a woodwork unit attended each week by over 110 people who have serious mental health problems. It provides different functions: brief work experience and employment assessment for, mostly, younger people; a slower route to employment for those not immediately job ready and a longer term supported work environment for those farthest from employment who nevertheless benefit from the supportive and friendly social environment and the confidence satisfaction and pride they gain from productive work. Anyone ready for open employment is taken on by our employment support team. As well as work, BAS offers social activities, a healthy eating club, a football team and links to our local allotment.
BAS users and their relatives report very high satisfaction levels, with improved mental health, reduced social isolation, increased activity, renewed confidence and fewer mental health crises.
We hope Better Assembly Services will in time become self-sufficient through trading, until then the grants it receives from organisations such as the Pixel Fund are vital to its survival.