20 commandments 16: Thou shalt support your client to overcome financial or housing problems and fight bureaucracy

If we don’t fight for our clients who will? We can’t expect the average financier to know much about mental disorder. Nor should we expect them to care for our clients any more than they care about any other member of the public.

It’s hard enough for people to negotiate the bureaucratic maze of the benefits system or the housing system without facing the prejudice and misinformation that surrounds mental disorder. When we add private financial organisations into the mix the stigma and complications often increase significantly.

It may be that your team will include someone well versed in negotiating this particular minefield. Traditionally this was the role of mental health social workers (among other duties) but those old boundaries are blurring now. It may be more reasonable to let the social worker get on with other aspects of their job whilst a nurse or other worker with the appropriate knowledge takes on this role. Whichever team member does it one thing is certain.

Our service-users and clients often face a much harder struggle than others. If we ignore the basic reality that we all need some sort of financial stability to survive in this society we will also fail to understand why our clients face continual relapse. There’s more to mental health than medicine – much, much more.

Based on the work of ‘Margreeth H.’    

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