Risky business: Mental illness, disclosure and the TAFE student

Abstract

This paper meets at the crossroads of personal experience and public policy. The personal is the experience of learning as described by five TAFE students with a mental illness. The public policy context is the increased political pressure on Australia’s major vocational training providers to increase workforce participation of people with mental illness. Contemporary research informs us that Vocational Education and Training students who disclose a mental illness are less likely to successfully complete the course in which they are enrolled than any other student cohort. The exploratory qualitative research described in this paper aims to increase understanding of the lived experience of learning for the TAFE student with a mental illness. A key finding concerned the students’ choice to not-disclose their mental illness and a belief that this non-disclosure aided the learning experience. The role of disclosure of a mental illness in the vocational education and training sector is challenged by this small study.

Keywords:

• mental illness
• qualitative
• non-disclosure
• TAFE
• learning