The Money and Mental Health project is a service offered by Kent Citizens Advice offices to help clients living with mental health issues, who need advice dealing with debt and other related issues.
Whilst the primary focus of the project is in helping with debt/money issues, the service we offer is holistic and where we identify other advice that might be needed, our project workers will make sure that appropriate help is given. This may involve, for example, giving advice on benefits, housing and employment issues. We are more limited in the advice we can give regarding family/relationship matters but may be able to sign-post clients to other organisations, which would be able to offer more specialist advice in this area.
The link between debt and mental health problems is well recognised and we see the project as an opportunity to not only assist in helping clients manage existing problems but also support them with preventative action, maximise their income and improve their financial capability going forward.
The project workers are all fully trained Citizens Advice advisers, who are closely supervised to make sure that the quality of advice the clients receive meets Citizens Advice quality standards. Our service is also regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.
Whilst the nature of our work means that we encourage clients as far as possible to take action on their own behalf, we recognise that this is often not possible for clients living with mental health issues and this project allows our advisers to be more proactively involved in the clients’ cases, including where necessary, contacting and negotiating with third parties on the client’s behalf.