Robyn O’Brien is a Partnership Lead for Save the Children Cymru working with local providers to improve early learning outcomes for children in their area. In supporting our work in Newport, she often hears first-hand from parents how the current cost of living crisis is impacting their mental health.
Before working in the charity sector, I worked as a mental health nurse. It was through this work that I realised that often services are treating symptoms of mental health rather than identifying the cause of why people might be feeling that way.
New evidence suggests that in fact, illnesses such as depression is probably not caused by a chemical imbalance, but instead is caused by the experiences that happen to us. Adverse Childhood Experiences - ACE - and trauma can lead to mental health illnesses in later life. But growing up in poverty is not classed as either of these.
It is a vicious cycle as we know that mental health problems lead to poverty. But equally poverty and other adversity can lead to mental health problems. We also know that children raised in households experiencing economic strain and who have parents with mental health problems sometimes experience a variety of negative mental health and anti-social outcomes themselves.
The situation in Wales and impact of the cost-of-living crisis
The Bettws Early Learning Community project in Newport focuses on bringing about local systems change that will help children growing up in the community and provide models that could work on a national level. As part of this work, I listen to the experiences of families as well as hearing what partners such as schools and practitioners have to say.
On a weekly basis I hear stories from parents about how the cost-of-living crisis is affecting their lives. For example, one mum talked about the fact that after she has paid all her bills for the month, she is left with £50 in her bank. Many say they are struggling to the basics such as food and clothes and are getting into debt. Stories like this really put into perspective the potential impact that the constant worry about covering essentials could have on people’s mental health. The cost-of-living crisis and people’s mental health can’t be looked at as individual issues, they are connected.
Cost of Living Crisis
The recent Bevan Foundation (2022) report highlights the realities that families in Wales are living in due to the current cost of living crisis with 45% of Welsh households not having enough money for anything other than the basics. The report also highlights that this is all having an impact on people's health with 43% of people in Wales having seen their mental health deteriorate because of their financial position whilst 30% have seen a deterioration in their physical health.
This is why it is more important than ever to flip the mental health narrative. The current cost of living crisis is impacting people’s wellbeing. And we know that just having someone to talk to rather than dealing with the problem alone can help. Solving the mental health crisis is not about more access to one-to-one therapy, counselling, or specialist services. It is about creating healthy communities and embedding expertise, skills, and knowledge within communities especially in relation to early intervention services.
How we are able to help?
Our Early Learning Community in Bettws is currently delivering a project, in partnership with Platfform, a mental health and social change charity in Wales, to tackle this issue.
The Embrace project aims to flip the narrative of mental health, from what’s wrong with you, to what’s happened to you? Over a period of a year, we’ll be working alongside families with children aged seven and under living in the Bettws area to share their stories. The learning from the project will help provide an evidence base for this field as well as inform future developments in practice both locally and nationally.
To present the project to the community, an animation has been co-produced with local children, families, and other organisations in the community to illustrate how children best develop with the support of resilient and healthy families and communities.
One quote from the animation voiced by a child really sums up for me how we need to look holistically at the links between poverty and mental health in going forward to be able to best support children and their futures.
“Difficult things happen and feeling lost, upset or out of control is normal. It does not make us broken. Sometimes we will need help from somebody professional. Other times having good relationships, and our basic needs met, is all we need to help us heal and grow.”
For further information on the Bettws Early Learning Communities project, and on our work in Wales.
