.:Resource Guides:Mental Health and Disability-What Opportunities Exist?
Mental Health & Disability
What opportunities exist?
Job opportunities can be divided into clinical and non-clinical. Clinical positions provide direct service or treatment to clients with mental health and disability issues. Non-clinical positions involve the indirect support services that are provided, as well as
fund-raising, research and advocacy.
Clinical positions are available at all educational levels. Obvious career paths exist with additional experience and education. Jobs which require a high school diploma and on-the-job training, or an associate degree would be: mental health assistant, recreation worker,
crisis intervention worker, home health aide, childcare worker, residential counselor, case management aide, gerontology aide, life skills worker, paraprofessional, sign language interpreter, and human services assistant. Generally these individuals work under the direction
of professionals in nursing, psychology, psychiatry, vocational rehabilitation, social work, physical rehabilitation, or adaptive technology.
The professionals in these areas will have a minimum of a bachelor's degree, and in many cases a master's degree. Positions include those such as: clinical psychologist, school psychologist, psychiatric nurse, mental health counselor, social worker, case manager,
psychiatrist, physical therapist, occupational therapist, agency executive director and vocational counselor. Some positions in psychiatry and psychology are at the doctoral level. Licenses and/or certifications are required in some cases at both the paraprofessional and
professional level.
Non-clinical positions that support the services provided to clients with mental health and/or disability issues are as varied as those in any other type of business. There is a need at a variety of educational levels for staff members in accounting, office management,
computer and network operations, meeting planning, fundraising and development, public relations, human resources, marketing research, design and development of adaptive equipment and/or software, and lobbying to name just a few.
