An update on my Story of Anxiety and Suffering from June 2022.
By Kendall Worth!
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| from... https://www.allianceon.org/Social-Prescribing |
In June 2022 I wrote two stories about life on welfare and the difficulties of making friends and keeping social connections while on social assistance. Both stories – here and here - point out that this informant is trying to find ways to make new friends, decrease his anxiety and find some outlets for his desire for a social life, that has no or very little cost.
This summer when we sat down he told me that in the warm weather, there was so much more he could do that helped him keep his anxiety down: Being able to go swimming a lot, celebrating his birthday (2 out of the 3 of his only social contacts celebrated his birthday with him), and just being able to get outside more. He also told me, he is keeping in touch with PAUSE mental health clinic a lot more. Also, for one week some good friends from Ontario were in Halifax this summer visiting. So that made for a big improvement in his life and mental state, over the summer months. Having the summer off from his part-time job also helps because it gives him more time to do things that help maintain his mental health.
However, he is now worrying for September when things are going to back to “normal”, again. The person who this story is about was telling me that he was hoping that during the recent sitting of province house, the government would have addressed the gaps in mental health services, as well as increased the Income Assistance rates. The Government did neither during the recent sitting.
It seems to us social assistance recipients that the government never intended to do anything to address social isolation. Addressing mental health as well as social isolation goes hand in hand. This informant told me, while getting this current update on his story that the professional at PAUSE Mental Health Clinic “asked me what type of interests I have and what type of social activities I like doing. When I told them I like to get together for coffee, go for walks through through the walking trails of HRM, watch a movie with someone occasionally, and go swimming, PAUSE encouraged me to call 211 to see what social groups are out their where I can find people who I share interest with.”
Those are good suggestions but there are some caveats:
First – I suspect that any group that 211 can direct him to is going to have a registration fee, he cannot afford. Just like when I talked about William https://nsadvocate.org/2019/02/08/kendall-worth-the-double-stigma-of-poverty-and-mental-health/ in the Nova Scotia Advocate. The Counsellor at PAUSE suggested Hike Nova Scotia when I told them I like hiking/doing the walking trails in HRM.
Here is a quote from that article about another welfare recipient: “William was telling me that one thing he would like to do is to get back into playing ice hockey. When William told me that one, It had me thinking “wow, playing ice hockey, what a great way to get out of the apartment and socialize with people.”
But the problem is registration to join things like ice hockey is so expensive that you outright cannot afford what they cost when you only get $810.00, [In 2022 - $950 - ED] meaning the $535 for shelter and $275 for personal allowance, from Community Services. Community Services will not cover the cost of joining something like an ice hockey team, not even as a special need”
I mean, don’t get me wrong, ice hockey like William wanted to do, just like hiking, is a healthy activity and way of getting out and socializing with people.
Second – These social groups that 211 can direct him to, have a lot of membership from the financially better off community. The question is How do I know that that people I meet through a group like Hike Nova Scotia are not going to be treating me with contempt or believing the myths about welfare recipients, and believing in the stigma about us, making the experience unpleasant?
The way I look at this whole thing, places like PAUSE Mental Health Clinic promoting a group like Hike Nova Scotia is it is all about Social Inclusion. The previous Liberal government wanted to look at Social Inclusion as part of the ESIA transformation. But then I guess the government realized that solutions for social inclusion was going to be bigger then DCS could handle. Here is a letter I wrote to then Finance Minister Karen Casey about this https://nsadvocate.org/2020/01/02/kendall-worth-open-letter-to-minister-karen-casey-on-the-need-for-people-on-income-assistance-to-live-a-full-life-in-their-communities/
Maybe getting a Social Prescription program going here in Nova Scotia could be part of the Social Inclusion we both want, and which is shared by many welfare recipients (and lots of other people who are lonely or isolated for other reasons) especially with mental health issues.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317143770_Stigma_of_addiction_and_mental_illness_in_healthcare_The_case_of_patients'_experiences_in_dental_settings
Anyway he was telling me that Summer was great but when fall comes, more of his weekends and days are going to be socially isolated at home if he cannot find a solution as to how he can expand his Social Contacts.
So, I want to end this by taking a moment here to go back to the very first article I ever did on Social Prescriptions, even though I have more recently talked about Social Precriptions on my BLOG. This one here, where I also linked to a CBC story about social prescriptions.
After the writing and editing of this story was done I had another question. We sat down while I asked him: If you were to follow the advice PAUSE is giving you, and call 211 about social groups, what do you see as the difference between that – say joining Hike Nova Scotia – and meeting people if social prescriptions were available in Nova Scotia?
He answered this Question by saying:
Well Kendall, you yourself told me about Social Prescriptions and your knowledge of the way it works in Ontario. You told me that you have heard from one informant, that people who volunteer in that program, one on one, have to go through a bit of training prior to getting matched up with a person who lives in a Low Income and/or mental health situation. In Ontario, from what I understand, some programs teach the volunteers to understand why people are on income assistance/welfare, and any mental health issues the friend they get hooked up with through the program might have. They are trained, as I understand it, not to believe in either the mental health or the welfare stigma. In Nova Scotia if Social Prescriptions were offered the volunteers could get the same training. I think if a Social Prescription program was to ever get started in Nova Scotia The volunteers should be required to go through training before getting assigned to a one on one program with Income Assistance Recipients.
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