Skillful Job Search Part 4 – Confidence Through Volunteering

This is the last of four posts discussing our approach to helping OPI Living and OPI Intensive participants with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) find and keep a job. Read Part 3 – DEAR Skills on the Job.

If obtaining and maintaining part-time work is too overwhelming, the Department of Volunteer & Career Services suggests that participants experience the work environment through volunteering. This gives them a low-pressure way to practice their DBT skills, get engaged in the community and be accountable for an ongoing commitment with fewer demands than that of an actual job.

We suggest that participants volunteer for a number of reasons: volunteering allows them to acquire new skills that can build their resume as well as confidence; it shows that they are still in the working world and can account for gaps in employment while in treatment; an added benefit is the networking potential for participants to build contacts they can use as references.

In addition to job-related skills, participants are able to take gradual steps towards building mastery in their Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) skills. Our therapists, alongside the counselors, assist with reinforcing the DBT skills that can deal with the impulsivity seen in many of our BPD clients. Combined, the coaching and therapy can lead to more tolerance of triggers in their volunteer environment.

Going a step further, volunteering can also be an opportunity to explore career paths. Some young adults have idealized certain careers without any practical experience or real-world knowledge of those professions. Volunteer experiences can help reaffirm participants’ preferences for certain fields and be used as teachable moments to examine what they liked, disliked, excelled at or struggled with while using DBT skills.

Once participants see that they can commit and sustain a volunteer position for a set period of time, they will usually gain the self-esteem, confidence and skill mastery to move forward with a successful job search.