Bert Nash jacket opens door to have a conversation about mental health

Wendy Karpowitz was done working for the day.

But she wasn’t done talking about Bert Nash. Not when given the opportunity.

Karpowitz, a case manager with Bert Nash’s SEED (support employment education development) team, was going through the checkout line one night recently at Target when the woman working the register asked Karpowitz about the monogramed logo on her jacket.

“What’s Bert Nash?” the woman asked.

Karpowitz, who was wearing her new black fleece with the blue Bert Nash logo, proceeded to tell the employee about the Center.

“I told her a little about Bert Nash, and she asked what I did and I said I do supportive employment and education case management, so I help people within the mental health community find competitive  employment,” Karpowitz said. “Then she asked me what competitive employment meant. I said these aren’t jobs that are specifically designed for people with disabilities; they are jobs that anyone else within the community would be eligible for. I went through what I do, whether it’s helping fill out applications, helping people practice interview skills, or sometimes I work directly with the employer to do job support.”

The woman at the checkout continued to ask questions.

“She asked if I’d ever had any clients apply at Target, and I said yes,” Karpowitz said. “I told her we’ve had people get interviews, but we haven’t been successful in placing clients at Target.”

While the spontaneous conversation Karpowitz had with the checkout woman offered no guarantees of a client being hired, it was an unexpected open door.

“It was a good conversation,” Karpowitz said. “This was really the first opportunity any of us at Bert Nash have had to talk with somebody at Target. The person I talked to can’t make any decisions, but she has been involved in some of the hiring. She said she would talk to her managers, so I’m hoping to go back and see if I can have a conversation that’s on a higher level. I hope I can keep the conversation going.”

 Karpowitz had just received her Bert Nash-monogramed jacket the day before she had the conversation with the checkout person. The jackets were available for Bert Nash staff members to buy as a fundraiser for the Center’s Recognition and Retention Committee, which uses the funds to promote activities that recognize employees.

“I had literally taken the tags off and walked out the door,” Karpowitz said. “It was really cool to have that opportunity.”

The SEED case manager was a bit taken aback when the woman said she didn’t know about Bert Nash.

“It was surprising, because the Bert Nash Center has been here for so long, and I grew up in this community,” Karpowitz said. “But you forget there are people moving in and out of this community all the time. So keeping our name out there and letting people know this service is available is pretty important.”

Even something like a jacket logo can provide an opening to talk about mental health.