Mind and Money Matters

I am helping to found a charity concerned with the interaction between mental health and financial difficulties.  We aim to provide support, information and advocacy for people with mental health and money problems.

The advent of technical solutions to financial problems has left a lot of society lagging behind.  We have become divided into those who are happy conducting business online, and those who prefer personalo support and face-to-face interaction. 

Those with mental illness are left to fill in online forms which are ill-adapted to their needs, and red tape seems to be increasing not decreasing, with online technical requirements becoming more burdensome across the board for benefits and business.

The push to growth, and the tendency of commerce to rely on encouraging overspending for success, makes victims of the vulnerable, creating debt that can be ill-afforded, which in turn creates mental misery further down the line.

In a vicious cycle, anxiety and depression cause financial problems, and financial difficulty causes further anxiety and depression.  Our society needs to become more mental health friendly in the way in which it deals with all this.  We need to help people out of these types of difficulty, but also create a better world which, through education, information and support, prevents the problems from arising in the first place.

We will initially be concentrating on finding out what difficulties people are having with their mental health which is leading to financial problems; and also what difficulties people are having with finance which are leading to mental health problems.

Our target is to help create a self-caring and financially aware society, in which we take care of ourselves and each other, with government and business working hand in hand to create a happy society that is inclusive, not alienating.

We are looking for our first funding, and anyone interested in helping is welcome to get in touch.