More Support?

Perhaps my cup runneth over. Another social enterprise has appeared; they are called Team North Somerset. They have lottery funding that lasts until the end of 2019 (at which point...who knows).

I had a meeting with one of their "wellbeing and work coaches" the other day. She seemed nice, but then they all do. The person I saw years ago from Working Links was friendly at first, and then, once you're on board, they completely flip. Will that be the case? Who knows. I'm prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt, but I'm not confident.

To be fair, they are not beholden (as far as I can tell) to the DWP so there can be no threats of sanctions or penalties unlike on the Work Programme or any of their vile subsidiaries. But the fundamental problems still remain: these organisations at best mean well, but they can't address the root cause of people's problems caused by structural oppression.

What I suspect is that it will be the usual mild mannered mood music: casual talk of confidence building, based around simplistic self help notions (count to 10 and breathe), all the promises of support that amount to little more than listing some local charity shops you can work in. That's great, and anyone who gets something out of it is to be commended, but it's hardly ambitious. But that's because they can't address the fundamental cause I just mentioned.

As long as they don't fall into the trap of victim blaming and magic thinking ("it's your journey, we can't be bothered to help you despite getting funding for it") then I can't be too disappointed, but I've been down this road many times before. Perhaps this time these will be people aware of the real problems - or maybe not. I'm betting the latter, but if they can help address some of the fundamental issues of mental health (which would be a first around here) and isolation then it might be worth it.

I guess it all depends how much of their funding they are willing to commit to really helping people, and how aware of the reality of structural oppression and capitalist societal relations (not to sound too high minded about it) they understand. That understanding is desperately important if your goal is genuinely to help.