Personal Blogs

Poverty is known to be a major contributor to mental illness and can seem so insurmountable that some poverty-stricken people decide to take drastic action to avoid the effects of poverty and its seemingly endless strain on the mind. Some people will make themselves homeless; some are made homeless against their will; and, some will end their lives.

Talk to someone, your friends, family, employer or tutor if you are affected by poverty. The goal is to come up with a solution. Even an imagined future can help make us feel better for a little while. That is the time to put a plan into practice.

Samaritans 116 123 (really kind people who listen)

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation is a charity that both carries out research and funds third-party research into poverty and its effects. Its focus is on ending poverty in the UK. Its origins are from the philanthropic nature of a Quaker confectioner. It works with private, public and voluntary sectors, and impoverished people. It is politically neutral and has no affiliations with any UK political party. Its areas of work cover: (here come those wonderful semi-colons again) cities, towns and neighbourhoods; housing; income and benefits; people; society; and work. (Wikipedia)

Describe how policy can support the mental health of individuals, including the provision for health and well-being.

We have come a long way from when witches were drowned or burnt at the stake in the Middle Ages. Burnt or drowned simply because some men and women demonstrated behaviour, such as visions, that may, or may not, be indicative, to their peers, of evil possession by a demon, or suchlike. It is fairly well understood that there were more ‘witches’ in the damp late Summers than when Summer culminated in a dry period. Mould, and mildew, and particularly ergot (which grows on damp rye) were prevalent, and set in, in the prolonged damp and warm days. Ergot is an hallucinogenic. Now, in the modern world, we have killed most of the witches, and both men and women are only prone to mental ill-health instead.

Gall’s Law states that ‘A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked.’ - John Gall, systems theorist.

Obviously, trying to see whether someone drowns when held underwater, or burn when tied to a stake surrounded by fire, is not a good system to ascertain whether they are merely unwell or spiritually overrun. But at least, they tried.

Making a single rule to apply where it works well is a good start to making a simple system. It is also a good idea to group any rules that work, and make sure they do not out-rule each other. Once a bundle of related rules can be grouped and consistently used, there only remains shaping, reviewing, and shaping again, before they can be the basis for a simple system. Unfortunately, there are no absolutes in our world so we cannot always use the same rules universally. In this case, we rely on making a reliable system by using benchmarks to use as comparisons and levels of achievement in a complex system. Without these benchmarks, we must rely, largely, on subjective guesswork. When benchmarks are reached, both being a point at which there is too much, and too little, of something or other, specific protocols, initiatives, and programmes are brought into play. However, there are rules on when to apply these protocols, initiatives, and programmes. This is known as a ‘policy’.

The Government has a Mental Health policy that is based on a vision of how they would like mental health and mental ill-health services to be delivered. It is perceived to be that, without this overall modern vision, and effective legislation that supports it, the delivery of programmes and services that deal with mental health and mental ill-health will be both fragmented and inadequate. The policy of the Government is to bring about better outcomes through legislation.

One of the Government’s priorities is to prevent mental ill-health and promote well-being. To improve health outcomes and reduce inequalities in health.

Legislation brings health and care professionals, and other attendant service providers into a position of responsibility to promote well-being and be vigilant in discovering mental ill-health. Further, these bodies become active in pursuing enquiries into an individual’s life, including home life, to determine and log the extent of any mental aberration and any deterioration of health therein, sometimes to the mental detriment of the reclusive individual.

Describe strategies to promote well-being

There are strategies that are considered useful to promote well-being that do not have the permission of affected individuals, yet are nevertheless implemented by tacit agreement. One concern here is that some people have an ‘high uncertainty avoidance’ personality, while others a ‘low uncertainty avoidance’ personality, and there are situations in which many people feel uncomfortable, while the same situation allows other individuals to ‘run riot’ through the environment. This, of course, creates an inequality.

Strategies to promote well-being in the workplace or learning environment

Individuals can be given more control over their work or learning. Modern schooling in England has brutally used this strategy to create learning environments in schools that are more conducive to shared responsibility among pupils to study a subject as a group activity and to organise their own work, as opposed to direct lecturing directly from the tutor to the students. This has created a dissipated responsibility for learning in students and an attitude of diminished responsibility for their individual behaviour. Where lectures are absent there is a growing taste in individuals to become lazy in applying concentration to the task at hand, namely; listening to, and understanding any information that is being conveyed. Giving individuals greater control over their work, and the organisation of it, for an individual with an ‘high uncertainty avoidance’ personality is plain unfair. These people require rigid codes of behaviour and beliefs; are intolerant of unorthodox behaviour and ideas; appreciate explicit instructions; and rely on procedures and policies to reduce the chance of letting things getting out of control. However, the intent behind this strategy is to build self-esteem and self-confidence, which both contribute to well-being.

Another strategy to promote well-being in the workplace or learning environment is ‘involving individuals in decision making’. The intent behind this is to create stakeholders in the implementation and actioning of decisions thereby driving motivation towards a successful outcome. This raises morale and satisfaction. Some people, however, just like to pick up box ‘x’ from position ‘a’ and take it to position ‘b’ where they pick up box ‘y’ and take it to position ‘a’.

A useful strategy for assisting in the implementation of the previous two strategies is to train line managers and tutors to be certain that they support these strategies; to wit: delegating control and decision-making in the workplace. Realistically, line managers are either hired for the job or are promoted because they show signs of complying with this concept of leaving people to their own devices; this could reveal, if we look carefully, a lazy line-manager who really does not know what to do and how to plan properly, yet has been trained to accept particular strategies. Certainly, I have come across dozens of ill-equipped and poorly educated line-managers who are ‘fumbling in the dark for a light switch’.

Following on from the previous strategy is: promote good leadership and good relationships between leaders in the organisation and those guided by them or reporting to them. The intent behind this is to reduce conflict and build strong relationships which support well-being. Certainly, there is a sense of well-being among people of the same opinion. Yet, this opinion in the hands of jaded leaders once solidified, can become an, almost, absolute rule or protocol. It is very easy to use an idea that does not appeal to individuals in one arena and then have it verbally tested over and over again in an environment of agreement. Therefore, this strategy is a very dangerous tool indeed. It should only be used if the people who are subjected to the (almost absolute) ‘rule’ are stakeholders in the rule and can consequently vote on the implementation of the rule. This, of course, eliminates the need for personnel with controlling powers and places control in the hands of the individual – also not a good idea if anarchy is not the goal. So, the intent is good, yet the appointment of good leaders is not in the hands of the individuals who are to be subjected to a later concretion of an idea or concept held by the leader.

There is a prevailing strategy in the workplace to engage employees who readily accept the organisation’s goals. This is now considered to be, in many job interview scenarios, so fundamental that many job applicants are sidelined or dismissed as not useful, simply because they couldn’t care less about the aims or progress of a business because they use a disjunctive evaluation of the prospective role they might play in the business’ ambitions – “How much will you pay me?’. Yet, unfeeling AI or automation is ‘so de rigueur’ these days.

Wherein everyone is working towards the same goal there is shared success and a better promotion of well-being, through greater motivation.

People like routine. Routine in individuals’ lives is promoted by mental health teams to help alleviate stress and promote well-being. This next strategy is: Allow employees to have greater control over their work-life balance. Here, there is an idea that life does not include work and that work and life are entirely separated. With this strategy, there is a belief that the employee needs to have fun outside of the work environment to alleviate the dissatisfaction that accumulates in a work environment. There is a perception that a drift away from needing routine towards a compulsion to be in an environment that is slightly chaotic is required by an individual, in order for that individual to be stable.

Long work hours and irregular hours have been shown to be factors in the diminishment of mental health.

Another strategy to promote well-being in the workplace or learning environment is rewarding commitment and effort. This is because there is an understanding that it is important to show that commitment and effort is greater than doing a job well; “Good Job, Jane!”, is not as good as “Good effort, Jane”. 

Dr Carol Dweck, an American psychologist who holds the Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professorship of Psychology at Stanford University, and is known for her work on motivation and mindset, considers that the former praise encourages a ‘fixed’ mind-set, while the latter praise encourages a ‘growth’ mind-set. Realistically, because Dr Dweck’s work is largely with learning children, we should be aware that encouraging a ‘growth’ mind-set is fine for young people practicing skills and attitudes, and not so fine for a brain surgeon finishing a job – “Good job, Susan!”, is probably better than, “Oh well, good effort, Sue”. However, there will be times when in the operating theatre any amount of effort will not be enough and encouragement for the expended effort will go a long way to alleviating any imagined guilt for not doing enough to save a life, and will certainly serve as a conduit for immediate support and a continuous stream of related support.

One avenue of early intervention which is an important factor in improving well-being is: reducing stress. Reducing stress has a consequence of reducing absences from work which prevents other workers from experiencing stress from added workloads. This ameliorates any dissatisfaction in the work place. Training programs and other initiatives help to prevent a rise in mental ill-health.

Workplace bullying can have a significant detrimental effect on mental health. Having a set standard of behaviour promulgated and proliferated throughout the work environment can prevent inappropriate controlling behaviour, mocking, and teasing.