By Kendall Worth!
Social Prescribing is involving healthcare in the determinants of health. A professional writes the prescription and sends you directly to an agency or to a navigator who finds what you need. We need a group who will work on the “social part”, after the prescription is written. So I am using “social prescribing” as short hand for the whole system. Those who prescribe, and the implementation of programs that are needed to fulfill prescriptions. Every time I write about things like Social Isolation and the connections between poverty and social isolation, there is one question that comes from the Better off Community. This same question arises when I have written about the need for Social Prescriptions.
This question is: What are professionals like psychiatrists, psychologists, physicians, counsellors, Social Workers, Etc., to whom income assistance recipients complain to, about not having friends, telling those income assistance recipients about maintaining friendships?
I have many conversations about this with the social worker from the North End Community Health Centre discussing how to answer this question.
Remember – This question comes from the better off community who are not professionals and who as far as I know have not spent a single day on welfare in their lives. When I hear this question I know they do not understand the community of people I advocate for…
The real question – which comes from people on social assistance as articulated by CF in this blog post, is:
What can non professional better-off people do to help welfare recipients feel like they are living less socially isolated lives?
The first and foremost answer is even though there is much they can do – the first and primary thing is for them to stop believing in the stigma that this article and this one talk about.
CF and I agree that the financially better off need to be educated about the lives of welfare recipients and that could be done by IA recipients themselves, if we had the opportunity. It is easier said than done given the stigma and myths believed by that better off community. A better -off person once suggested to me that the cause of social isolation was not the transition from work (and losing those work friends) but they suggested it is the same for everyone -- living life in social isolation can also happen by simply getting older – i.e. past your twenties - older adults do not make friends like younger people do. This Person could be correct. After all, as people get older and as they fade away from their late teens/Early 20’s, what they like to do for getting out and socializing also tends to change.
One example of interest changing is illustrated in something CF recently told me. . he is now 39 years old and when he was in his early 20’s – when he had a full time job and was not receiving Income Assistance – he had a group of friend who, he would go out for wings with weekly on Thursday nights. He told me that he was 27 years old when that “Wing Night” ended, and he was 32 years old when he started receiving Income Assistance. CF pointed out that the reason why the Wing night has ended had nothing to do with living his life being on Income Assistance. As matter of fact he worked for 4 more years after he stopped going out for wings with that group of friends.
Now, how he lost his job and ended up on Income Assistance, is a whole other story. However like many Welfare Recipients, when his days of receiving Income Assistance began, those friendships ended. CF told me recently, that he not spoken to those friends in 7 years and although he would like to, rekindling those friendships is unlikely to happen.
I asked CF - – Do you ever talk to the professionals like psychiatrists, psychologists, physicians, counsellors, Social Workers, Etc. about the need, and your desire to make new friends?
CF answered by telling me – he has - and the advice they gave him is that “making friends” is not something they can help him with. I once interviewed Alec Stratford about the role of social workers: “Alec’s answer was that it would not be appropriate for a social worker to volunteer in this type of program. Alec and I both agreed that doctors, social workers and other professionals all have to consider the same professional boundaries when dealing with a client.” They consider organizing a coffee-- get-together for clients to be “against professional standards”. What we need is an organization that they can refer clients to for socializing and friendship help.
CF told me that he misses having that one night a week to get out and socialize with people. CF asked me during our recent conversation - if Social Prescriptions ever got implemented in Halifax and they had a way to refer to a navigating organization - do you think that it is possible to organize a group of people for me to go out to a wing night with? I told CF, it is possible, but not to expect the structure through a program like this, to be a drinking party as it was in your early 20’s. I then advised him that through such a program, there is very likely to have zero tolerance for alcohol purchase and consumption during their events. As matter of fact, previously (in this post) I talked about the fact that some people have already articulated their concern about alcohol consumption. People who are in recovery (from alcoholism) will also be taking advantage of such a program.
So overall I am trying to paint a picture as to the reasons why professionals are no help in this area. We need to find solutions.
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