Page 10 - Manchester Mind Annual Report 2021-2022

Advice
Our MVAP partnership links directly into our advice work, which we see as an essential part of our services – it always was and still is.
We are trying to bring a trauma-informed approach to everything we do: this includes advice. The benefit, debt, and housing problems people bring to us have often exacerbated their mental health problems. This means that we sometimes need to spend time to allow people to feel safe enough to tell us their story or at least the bits that are relevant to the advice process
– it isn’t always an easy or comfortable thing to do, so we need to respect this and give people time.
One of our advice workers spoke to someone whose first words were “you will give up on this case in the end, no one ever sticks with me, I’m too hard to work with.” She explained that she struggled to engage consistently
and other agencies just wouldn’t help her. Although she struggled to maintain contact with us, the small gestures of persistence really meant a lot to her. At the end
they sent a text that said “you’ve shown me that some organisations do care about mental health”.
“I feel that mental health issues and financial difficulties go hand in hand. People like Lisa (Advice
Worker) are integral in the journey of stability and recovery”
Annual Review 2021-22
10