The problem of employment in Tana River seems to be two-fold: Lack of employer’s knowledge about psychosocial disability and the lack of knowledge amongst youth, especially young women with psychosocial disabilities on how to apply for jobs and participate in the work environment. The IkuzeAfrica#EmployHer project facilitates the employment of women with psychosocial disabilities in Tana River County through job coaching and providing linkages with employers, who are sensitised on working with young people with psychosocial disabilities by following a specially designed training programme. The training is tailored to suit different employers and for different types of psychosocial disabilities. The impact of the intervention is measured (pre and post-intervention) by assessing knowledge, attitudes, and practices of employing people with disabilities among the employers.

Narrative change on psychosocial disability 

The IkuzeAfrica #EmployHer project facilitated the employment of women with psychosocial disabilities in Tana River County through job coaching and providing linkages with employers. These employers were sensitised on working with young people with psychosocial disabilities by following a specially designed training programme. 

A key significant change observed at the end of the project was the increased and positive awareness about psychosocial disability amongst the women, the employers and the community. The project results can be viewed from a three-pronged approach; impact on the women with psychosocial disabilities, societal awareness and stigma reduction and knowledge generation. 

On impact on the women with psychosocial disabilities, there was an improvement in physical, social, psychological quality of life scores as measured by the WHO quality of life questionnaire from baseline to end line among women with psychosocial disabilities. The proportion of women who rated their health status as “poor” during baseline decreased from 62.5% to 8.7% while those with “good” health status at baseline increased from 20.8% to 52.2% at the end line. There was also an improvement in the social functioning of women with psychosocial disability from a mean of 9.7 at baseline to 11.7 at end line 

For societal awareness and stigma reduction, mean scores for anticipated discrimination among women with psychosocial disabilities reduced from a mean score of 0.92 at baseline to 0.75 at end line as measured by the questionnaire on anticipated discrimination (QUAD). In addition, majority of the employers testified that the new knowledge about psychosocial Disabilities (PD) has changed their traditional perspectives and attitude towards persons with PD. There also has been marked improvement in general awareness of psychosocial disabilities among all the stakeholders who include persons with psychosocial disabilities, the employers, and the community. This is evidenced by self-reports and through quantitative measures. 

For knowledge generation, interviews conducted with employers at baseline and end line showed clear improvement in their understanding of psychosocial disabilities, as evidence by self-reports and quantitative measures showing the mental knowledge mean score increasing from 22.2 at baseline to 24.3 at end line, as measured by the Mental Health Knowledge Schedule Questionnaire (MAKS) among sample of 25 women with psychosocial disabilities. At the end of the project, all the 20 employers and/or their representatives expressed willingness and commitment to work with and offer employment opportunities to persons with psychosocial disabilities. 

A key lesson learned from the project is the power of networking and that change is possible. From the onset, COVID-19 was not something that the team had planned for that would make face-to-face interactions difficult. At a point, it appeared it would not be possible to continue. However, the team leveraged on the network of persons with disabilities to identify women with psychosocial disability, employers, and other stakeholders in the project. Markers of success included in person and virtual training sessions, mobilization and training employers and other stakeholders including county governments and the media, two-day link and learn and dissemination workshops 

The learnings from this project has been disseminated through two manuscripts under review (Improving work and employment opportunities for women with psychosocial disabilities: protocol for a pilot intervention model. Global Mental Health; Mental health knowledge, Anticipated discrimination and Social Functioning among Women living with psychosocial disability in rural Kenya). There are also three manuscripts in progress (Perceptions and attitude of rural women with psychosocial disabilities towards self and wage employment in Kenya; Employer perspectives on employment of women with psychosocial disabilities in rural Kenya; Impact of disability inclusion training on work and employment for women with psychosocial disability). One abstract was also submitted (Unemployment in women with Psychosocial disabilities in times of COVID-19; lessons from Tana River County, Kenya)