[The meaning of the consulting trade place in breaking through mental illness]

The aim of this article is to show the effects of the Consulting Trade Place for people seeking employment "On the way to work", which exists thanks to the KRKA company. The aim of the trade place is the stimulation of mentally ill people in social life, through giving them the ability to work.

Throughout the year, 215 people enrolled, especially schizophrenic patients. Almost half of them received information about where they could work or where one could find informations about it. Getting the job, or even the hope to get it, awakes resources which where put aside by the long period of illness. People who get a job, stress the satisfaction of "being someone useful", "being someone important and valuable", "being accepted by the society". The willingness to live increases and so does faith in normal functioning. The persons studied said, that they once again become the integral part of society, no more are they the margin of society. They once again became necessary and useful. The relevant part of this change was an improvement of their financial situation, and by implication, the improvement of the family relations. Their poor net of social relations got widened with new people, and often with new friendships.

Summing up, the first year of the consulting trade place activity, we have to say that it is a new, and original method of helping mentally ill persons, who are trying to overcome the existing disability. It is also an initiative fitted to the needs and abilities of the chronically mentally ill, who have just left the mental hospital.