Mental health and benefits vouchers

[BumpNGrind]

Help me out mumsnetters, I was having a discussion with a mental health professional friend and didn't feel like I could argue with them but the argument didn't sit quite right with me and I'd like to hear opinions from both sides. I was discussing the issues of benefits, they know I'm a strong supporter of the welfare system.

My friend was saying that they wished a system existed where those with serious mental health conditions could receive their benefits as vouchers for food, electricity, household utilities as they had experience where many of those with conditions such as bi-polar would spend all their money, including on prostitutes, alcohol, drugs and then have nothing to live off. They relied heavily on the staff who look after them pooling together and giving them food or putting money into their gas meters etc. The staff shouldn't strictly be doing this, but I could understand why they were in those circumstances, especially if the person had children.

I've never ever been convinced of vouchers for those of benefits, but in these situations I didn't feel like I had a good enough answer. I don't feel like we should tell anyone how to spend their own money and if you are entitled to it then that's a good enough reason for you to have this money IMO. However, my friend argued that if someone is seriously ill (ie, under the care of a medical mental health consultant, sectioned under the mental health act or similar) it could actually be adding to their illness if they have the responsibility of budgeting on top of their illness.

What do you think?

You've raised a very good point, and one that is always difficult to answer. At what point in someone's mental capacity do we take away both the right and the responsibility of budgeting for oneself?

I think it depends on whether it is seen as 'their' money in which case they can spend it as they wish or the States money to support them with their health issues, in which case, they can't.

I'm inclined somewhere in the middle. Vouchers for necessary things - food and electric. Small amount of cash for others.

In this particular situation I would agree with your friend.

What a coincidence that you should have had such a conversation the same day benefits vouchers were proposed at the Tory Party Conference.

I think people like this should be in supported housing or have meters fitted that the government pays the basic bills are paid.

Then a benefit adjustment made. The rest paid in cash

Isn't that part of therapy though? To learn how to live day to day?

In the US when people get benefits, you get help for certain things. So you apply for food stamps, help with utilities, health insurance. Rarely you get just money (welfare). It seems to work well here, that way people are getting help for things they need, not just free money to blow on booze and drugs.

I had this conversation over the weekend actually, it came about as the friend had mentioned it at work and I was asking her about her about her job and how it was going. I can assure you that the last thing I am is a Tory, quite the opposite.

Oh, yes, the US version of welfare works so well, huge food banks, tent cities, rough sleepers and its crime levels.

Bul - some people can't. Therapy isn't a life changing answer for everything. Just as some long term conditions can't be cured but managed, it's the same with some MH conditions.

I don't believe in vouchers.

I can get a bag of carrots in aldi around 30p, but in tesco is 90p. That 60p difference.

My local butcher is 1/2 the price of tesco and the meat is a lot better quality.

What is stopping the prositute or drug dealer accepting theses vouchers in exchange for services.

For a few seconds treating your OP as if it's real, I would say.

If someone has serious mental health problems, adding another layer of bureaucracy like vouchers which can only be spent on certain things, or at specific participating stores, or by turning up in person, will actually prevent them from buying the things you intend.

And if they are determined to spend the money on drugs, they will simply exchange vouchers for far less than face value on a thriving black market, as happened last time when vouchers were introduced for asylum seekers.

Well if a person has mental health issues that are bad enough for them to receive DLA then a nominated person can receive the payments for them in order to prevent them from not using their money 'correctly' - I receive ds's DLA payments and if he stays at his current level of ability then I will continue to receive them after he turns 18 as he would not be responsible enough to be in charge of his own money.

Couldn't someone else be nominated to help them with budgeting? I know it wouldn't be easily done necessarily but I'm just uncomfortable with the idea of telling people, even those with MH what they can spend their money on :/ I guess it would depend on the severity of their MH, I know someone with bi-polar who is a SAHM to 3 children and I'm sure she would be furious if someone told her what she could and couldn't spend her money on!

Besides, if someone has been sectioned surely they aren't able to go out and spend money anyway as they are being closely supervised? (Apologies if I have this wrong, don't know much about sectioning)

How would you stop people selling or trading their vouchers for drugs, alcohol etc though, and unscrupulous people targeting the most vulnerable to rip them off?

The ice cream vans which used to go around here, accepted milk tokens for fags.

Long since retired.

I've been really against the housing benefits being paid directly to tenants (trialled in an area very close to me) because I can see the link with the rise in rental arrears and I think it's cruel to put people in a position where they could lose their homes.

However, I'm torn because it's up to the individual to spend their money how they see fit and I don't make any distinction to whether that money is from benefits or from their own earnings.

The friend did refer to the therapy being there to help people live day to day and to learn skills like budgeting, but she said that in some cases these skills take a great deal of time to learn because the person is so ill, and in the meantime they are managing budgets over which they are not mentally capable of doing.

A prostitute or drug dealer would be HIGHLY unlikely to accept food vouchers in lieu of payment!

And how would vouchers mean they didn't need to budget? They would be budgetting in vouchers...

Hummmm tricky. I can see both sides really. If people don't have the capacity to budget due to illness as in the eg given I can see how it would help. Anything that makes people avoid payday loans has to be a positive.

I see no problem with housing benefit being paid directly to landlord/mortgage company, but it becomes a bit tricky with other less concrete bills. It's like someone is saying how much you should spend on food etc. How would you work that out?

Yes, housing is easy to pay directly, because it's a fixed amount to a fixed supplier. Any variation is over a long timescale.

Buying food and putting the heating on more on colder days... not so much.

PausingFlatly, this is a genuine thread relating to a genuine conversation. I don't know all the answers and haven't formed my opinions on every issue, I thought it was an interesting conversation and that's why I've raised it in AIBU.

Shareacokewithnoone.

When I used to do drugs as a stupid teen, I was offered drugs on tick. No doubt a drug dealer would accept these as part payment.

When my sister had heathy start vouchers, I used to get her baby milk for her as well as do her heavy shopping as I drive, not once did anybody question if I was entitled to use them.

Drug dealers need to eat as well, they may as well take them and use them at face value.

On the day that it was proposed at the Tory party conference?

There's another thread running explicitly in answer to the conference. No one there has claimed they just happened to be talking about it with a friend.

BTW, you will find that thread informative, as it is longer and looks at the question from more aspects.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/2196995-To-think-pre-paid-benefits-cards-are-a-stigmatizing-punitive-scheme?

Oh, yes, the US version of welfare works so well, huge food banks, tent cities, rough sleepers and its crime levels.

Our crime is not just relegated to the poor.

People live in tent cities because... they're choosing to live in tent cities. There are plenty of resources that don't involve sleeping in a tent or going homeless.

Huge food banks are a problem how? I thought feeding our poor people was a good thing?

The thing with benefits is they're meant to take the edge off, so you don't have to choose between feeding your family or paying bills. They're not meant to be a permanent thing. We don't get the free ride that you do, but we also get to keep most of our pay check and have one of the lowest tax rates. So it balances out.

Disability here is actually pretty good. FIL is disabled and he gets enough money in benefits to get food, a new house, and while not enough to go on vacations or anything like that, it's enough to live day to day in comfort.

One thing that I didn't know was that some people like my friend, who work in mental health have created almost their own sub branches of food banks. I have long donated my old or unused household items (bedding, towels, lampshades etc) to my friend as I know she'll always be able to give it to people she works with, but I didn't realise that things were that serious that people didn't have the very basics like food for the majority of the month, or that mental health and financial capability could be -so- intrinsically linked that they can be a cause or a contributer of mental health conditions.

I don't like the US system because as a PP stated, it's not seen as a generous system and people don't generally do well on it but I couldn't argue with my friend who seemed to think it was a caring thing to do, to put seriously ill people on a voucher system. I didn't even consider the possibility of those vouchers being used as a tic system.