These are the Solutions on offer

I haven't heard from my advisor since March. Each time I've tried to get in touch the mail seems to mysteriously end up in her boss' inbox. Why is this? I can only assume she's dliberately passing it on, which means she doesn't want to talk to me at all. Why might this be? I cannot say.

When I first met these people, almst exactly a year ago, they seemed a refreshing change from the usual behaviour of these types of organisation. But then, they all do, at first. They'll sweet talk you to be your friend and then, sooner or later, they change. They all revert to type.

At this point the only thing they are willing to offer is something called 'Solutions'. To put it simply, and you can see from the screenshots I've taken of their paraphenalia, it's just another example of the magic thinking 'let's go on a journey' self help guru rubbish this industry peddles. It does not - cannot - address the structural issues that surround unemployment and why one might not be 'succeeding' in life. In fact it offers no definition of what one shoudl consider success beyond getting a job. Nor does it offer any realisation that simply getting a job isn't always synonymous with success - as we can see from the scale of in work poverty that now exists, baked into the system.

Here we go (click for screenshots)

I'm posting this, as I've always tried, to show what's happening in this sector. I believe this course represents courses like it across the country. There are many groups like this, especially those that are connected to whatever schemes the DWP inflicts on people. To be clear, this group are not, as far as I know. Though I'm sure claimants will be referred or 'recommended' to them when they sign on, so it matters not. They are, iirc, funded by the Lottery. This expires next year. That's what I was told. What happens then? Who knows. I'm sure there will be another cookie cutter outfit ready to step into the breach, probably funded by another iteration of the same kind of funding model, ready to offer much the same thing.

You can see their attempt to deal with mental health issues that a participant might have is a perfunctory referral to counselling. I don't believe counselling is bad and I've no idea of the quality of the people you'd see, but I can tell you that counselling is far from ideal in all situations. But this is indicative of the dismissal of mental health; just refer people to 'talking' therapies which don't require lots of moving parts just a counsellor. This is naive at best; talking things through again does not address structural problems. I know this from personal experience; the counsellor I saw 18 months ago gave up after three sessions. Gave up! She was saying I should present to Bristol council and that they would give me somewhere to live, instead of being stuck out in the sticks. Utter nonsense! As if there aren't loads of homeless people/crisis cases already, as if there isn't a massive housing crisis the council has to contend with. This is their approach; they'll sell you down the river with simplistic solutions that don't help and when you refuse, rightly, you are told YOU are the problem.

So if your problems are of a complex mental health nature, likely to be societal in nature, specifically as a result of structural poverty caused by the dominant failing economics of our age, just speak to your counsellor. Meanwhile let's do all these insipid activities like "colour personality profiling".

How insidious does that sound?

Is this really as good as it gets? I'll let you judge for yourself. I'd also appreciate if anyone out there reading this (thanks!) lets me know what they think. It'd be nice to have a dialogue about this.

Cheers.