Job Center Provides Turning Point for Disabled, Disadvantaged Clients : Employment: Nonprofit foundation helps those with psychological and other problems find work.

Inside a second-story office, Mark Clayman spends his days sorting mail, filing paperwork and billing patients of the Briarwood Medical Group.

It is a long way from other jobs the 22-year-old Camarillo man has endured, a steady position that offers him higher pay and stable hours.

“I enjoy it a lot,” said Clayman, who was referred to the medical group through the Turning Point Foundation’s job placement program. “I’m not the kind of person who likes being home that much.”

Clayman is among more than 100 people who have found work through the Turning Point Foundation. The jobs range from secretarial and retail work to food service and computer programming positions.

Launched three years ago by the Ventura-based nonprofit foundation, the job placement center finds full- and part-time work for psychologically disabled and other disadvantaged workers.

“Working gives you a sense of participation in the community and feeds your self-esteem,” program director Lorraine James said.

“Feeling useful really affects a person’s health and well-being, especially their mental health,” she said.

There are other, more tangible benefits to finding jobs for disadvantaged people, James said.

“It saves our tax dollars from being used up in hospitalizations for clients,” she added. “People are able to get off their entitlements and their Social Security, and they’re able to be self-sufficient.”

In addition to finding jobs for disadvantaged clients, the Turning Point Foundation operates a drop-in center for men and women with mental illnesses, offers group and self-help counseling services and administers a drug- and alcohol-free independent living center.

“We look at the specific and individual needs of our clients,” James said. “We try to develop a job that is specifically for our client. We look at their skills and desires, but most of all we look at their motivation.”

Lisa Struthers, the billing supervisor at the Briarwood Medical Clinic, said Clayman impressed her the moment he stepped into the office.

“We had quite a few people who applied,” she said. “But Mark was one of the few people who wrote a follow-up letter. He asked a lot of good questions and he had good answers to the questions I asked.”

Struthers said that many of the people who respond to her classified advertisements only take the job for a few months before moving on to something else.

“Mark wanted to be here for the long term, and he had experience doing the type of work we needed,” she said.

Clayman, who was hired in March, is not sure how long he will stay at Briarwood Medical Group. But he has his sights set on a promotion to a data-entry job in the same office.

“I’d like to earn a raise so I could get out on my own,” said Clayman, who lives with his father and brother in Camarillo. “Then I want a new car.”