The theme of the iFEVR/iphYs meeting was New Frontiers, and for IPS in early intervention South America is a new geographical frontier. Cristián Mena from the Early Intervention in Psychosis Program (ProITP) in Santiago, Chile gave a presentation on behalf of his colleagues describing the implementation of IPS in the Chilean context. A PDF of the slides Cristián used is available here. Additionally a question was asked of Cristián through the Sli.do app. The question was How will Chilean law work in promoting access to work for people with disabilities? To which Cristián responded:

Promotion is made addressing issues related with work and disabilities:

– Public organizations and private companies with 100 or more workers must hire at least 1% of people with disabilities.

– Reinforce in the respect the dignity of people with mental disabilities by eliminating wage discrimination.

– The age limit for signing the Learning Contract for people with disabilities is set at 26 years.

– Any discrimination against people with disabilities is prohibited.

– People with disabilities will have guarantees in the labour selection processes of the State.

By now, a problem for mental health users is that employers consider mainly physical but not mental health disabilities. Another barrier is related with certification of disabilities. A government agency certifies disabilities and some employers and organizations ask for that when they want to hire people under the law. For users, this is not comfortable and interferes with the disclosure process of their diagnosis and disability.