Improving mental health
Comic Relief helped us to start a project to help people improve their finances and manage their money. Our skilled and trained debt advisers meet with people to improve their skills, help them grow in confidence so that they can think about employment with better pay. This service provided help through home visiting for people who are depressed and can not face going out. Comic relief funding ends in June and we have only found £5,000 we need further funding to help this work to continue.
Why they need our service Debt is a major cause of anxiety and worry. It stops people from recovering from mental health problems and causes them. Families suffer and people lose income when they are too distressed to go to work. Every week people approach our service who are thinking about suicide or have failed in the attempt. 73% of people contacting us self assess that they are very worried or anxious.West Somerset came bottom of the national survey assessing social mobility and has the lowest take home pay.
Plan and expected results Every week over 50 people contact us. They tell us we help, Pam said "Problems made me feel so ill at times - now know I have a place to turn"
We will help people to feel in control, stop the letters arriving that cause people to lose sleep and become ill. We can give intensive help to 35 people,with this additional funding we hope to double this figure..Recently I made a call and was asked to ring back as "I am at work". Last year she had destroyed her documents and tried to end her life.