The Wales Centre for Public Policy (WCPP) has recommended four areas of focus for Welsh Government action on poverty and social exclusion. One of these is about mental load and mental health:
“Addressing the emotional and psychological burden carried by people living in poverty and social exclusion through tackling stigma, (re)humanising ‘the system’ and treating people with the respect and dignity they deserve.”
At Mind, we’re glad to see mental health being recognised as a central component of any anti-poverty strategy. Money and mental health are often linked. Poor mental health can make earning and managing money harder. And worrying about money can make your mental health worse. It can start to feel like a vicious cycle. Poverty is one of our three strategic development priorities at Mind. We want to stop people with mental health problems getting trapped in poverty.
Listen to our Head of Equalities Improvement, Marcel Vige, discuss the link between poverty and mental health on WCPP’s podcast, PEP Talk.
Last year we did a piece of research with people who have lived or are living in poverty. We asked them about their experiences of mental health support and how we might best help them in the future. Over half said they would be interested in a support service that combines mental health support with financial support. This is corroborated by WCPP’s report which found that ‘one-stop shop’-style multi-agency services in the community can help address the range of interconnected needs and vulnerabilities people living in poverty experience. Such services are especially effective when they are non-stigmatising and leverage existing trusted local relationships.
We’ve partnered with Citizens Advice and the Trussell Trust to deliver Help through Hardship. Through this programme, we aim to tackle poverty and poor mental health by offering joined-up advice and services and campaigning together for a more just support system.
Together, we’re delivering three key projects as part of Help through Hardship:
- The Help through Hardship helpline is delivered by Citizens Advice and the Trussell Trust. The free helpline offers personalised, holistic support to people who don’t have enough money for essentials. Their helpline advisers talk with people about the reasons why they don’t have enough money and help them access social security payments they’re entitled to. They can also connect people with a wider range of services and support, such as a referral to their local Citizens Advice for debt advice. Advisers can transfer people directly to Mind’s Infoline if they identify a mental health need and can also make a referral to a food bank in the Trussell Trust network for emergency food if needed.
- Help through Hardship local is a project between Citizens Advice, Mind and the Trussell Trust to help facilitate local partnerships. The aim is to provide holistic support to people who are facing both money and mental health problems. The grants are expected to fund six partnership projects between local Citizens Advice, local Minds and food banks in the Trussell Trust network. At least one local partnership project will be in Wales.
- Using our shared voice to campaign for a more just support system for people facing poverty and mental health problems. This will be informed by insights gathered from the other two projects.
Citizens Advice and the Trussell Trust have been working in partnership to deliver the Help through Hardship helpline since March 2020. We began piloting direct transfers from the helpline to Mind’s Infoline in September 2021 and we’ve learned a lot in the last year. We’ve improved our training for Help through Hardship helpline advisers so they feel more confident in talking about mental health and explaining how Mind’s Infoline could help people. We’ve also listened to feedback that sometimes people don’t want to be transferred to Mind’s Infoline immediately, even if they think it would be useful. This might be because they need a rest or, if they’ve received a food bank voucher, they might need to go and collect a food parcel. To address this, we will be piloting a call back service so Mind’s advisers can call people back at a time that suits them to discuss their mental health.
As well as some of these operational learnings, we’ve discovered a lot about the wider benefits of partnership working. Each partner brings different knowledge, experiences, and approaches. This could be seen as a challenge, but in fact this strengthens what we’re able to deliver as we can learn so much from each other. For example, Citizens Advice bring an in-depth knowledge of the social security system and how it works both on paper and behind the scenes. The Trussell Trust have shared their language guidelines for talking about poverty, social security, and food bank usage, which are helping us talk about our work in a non-stigmatising way. As for Mind, we are very proud of how we centre people with lived experience in our processes and decision-making. This is something we’ve been able to bring to the programme, by setting up a lived experience panel to guide us. Many aspects of this approach – such as involving people with lived experience of poverty and addressing the ‘mental load’ that poverty places on people – are in line with the WCPP’s research findings about ‘what works’. We hope to see other organisations acting on the WCPP’s findings and sharing their results.