Middle Class Solutions To Working Class Problems Is Why Charities Like MIND Keep Getting It So Wrong

Reblogged from JohnnyVoid, with thanks https://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/2015/02/13/middle-class-solutions-to-working-class-problems-is-why-charities-like-mind-keep-getting-it-so-wrong/ Iain Duncan Smith must be pissing himself. A report released at the end of last year by mental health charity MIND could not have gone further in endorsing the core ideas that lie behind his bungled and brutal welfare reforms. The report is titled “We’ve Got Work To Do” and claims to demand ‘fundamental reform’ of the workplace and social security system to better support people with a mental health condition. Sadly it is calling for nothing of the sort and is underpinned by the exact same lies and toxic assumptions that have driven both Tory and Labour welfare reforms. Just like the DWP, MIND have adopted the flawed medical consensus that work is good for your health. The charity does acknowledge that this isn’t actually always true, but falls short of saying that work can be bad for your health, instead arguing that “inappropriate or poor quality work can have as negative an effect on people’s mental health as not being in work”. They base this opinion on research carried out in Australia that found that “the mental health of those who were unemployed was comparable or more often superior to those in jobs of the poorest psychosocial quality.” In other words work can be worse for your mental health than being unemployed, rather than just equally bad as MIND claim. It is not nit-picking to point out the discrepency between what this research found and what MIND say it found because it reveals the charity’s opinions to be based on ideology, not facts. This same factual slippage occurs elsewhere in the report when MIND begin by saying that most people with mental health conditions want to work, which later becomes everyone with a mental health condition wants to work. The truth, as revealed in the footnotes to the report, are that only around 58% of people out of work due to a mental health condition strongly agreed they wanted to return to work whilst 20% did not feel they were well enough. These two distortions – or let’s call them lies – have allowed the despised Work Capability Assessment, benefit sanctions and workfare all to be misrepresented as ‘support’ or ‘help’. In truth these measures destroy lives. The medical consensus that work is good for you does often not apply to those on the lower end of the income scale who face being forced by Jobcentres into the kind of work likely to make them ill. MIND’s Chief Executive Paul Farmer claims at the beginning of the report that there have been “improvements in how people with mental health problems are supported”, although it is unclear what they are. There then follows an emotive journey about someone’s journey through the benefit system after leaving work due to depression. This is actually where their journey would stop, because unless they could provide reems of medical evidence to the Jobcentre they would be disallowed benefits for giving up work. That this reports begins by misrepresenting the benefit system as it currently functions just shows how removed these giant disability benefits charities have become from the lives of those they claim to support. Instead the ‘fundamental reform’ they call for is actually more of the same or worse – such as the dangerous idea that sensitive health information from the Work Capability Assessment should be passed over to Work Programme providers like A4e and G4S. This is like your boss having access to your medical history and appallingly MIND relaxed about this as well. Much of the early part of the report is taken up by calling for improvements in the working environment for people suffering mental ill-health. Which is fine, everyone wants that, except greedy employers who worry it might cost them money or who harbour nasty little prejudices about mental health. According to MIND themselves this is about 40% of them. Yet one of MIND’s recommendations is that the Maximus run ‘Fit To Work’ service – the new telephone helpline which will be used to certify time off instead of GPs – should more effectively engage with employers. About the only decent thing about Fit To Work, which is designed to bully people back into the workplace before they are better, is that currently you have the right to keep your boss out of any discussions. The final part of the report discusses what future welfare-to-work schemes should look like for those with a mental health condition. The charity are calling for “new specialist scheme for people with mental health problems on ESA”. A scheme which should be run by those who “have expertise and experience of working with people with mental health problems”. And here lies the real reason for this report. It’s a fucking advert to any incoming Labour Government to give MIND a lucrative contract to run a new welfare-to-work service. There is no longer any doubt that endless Atos assessments, workfare and benefit sanctions are creating a crisis in the lives of those with a mental health condition. The tragic death toll rises ever higher. Yet nowhere in this report does MIND call for these brutal policies to be scrapped. Even if MIND were handed a contract to be nicer to people on ESA this would still leave those who have been found fit for work abandoned and dumped onto mainstream unemployment benefits alongside those whose condition is at yet undiagnosed. On twitter yesterday MIND claimed they couldn’t call for sanctions to be scrapped for people who are unemployed because it wasn’t a key issue. If your mental health condition isn’t bad enough to be able to claim ESA then tough shit seems to be the charity’s response if you get sanctioned. The thing is, naked profiteering aside, MIND are not bastards. They have dedicated front line workers who don’t get paid anywhere near enough and are sincere committed people. Workers who would probably agree that benefit sanctions and the Work Capability Assessment should be scrapped immediately. They see the carnage that is being caused everyday. The problem is that reports like these are overseen and commissioned by highly paid charity executives who live lifestyles that their service users and lowest paid staff can only dream of. These lifestyles lead them to make assumptions based on their own distorted experience of the world. Over time they become unable to avoid inflicting solutions to the problems faced by working class people based on their own middle class values because that is all they know. It is near impossible for someone on a huge salary who does a job they love to understand why someone may not feel up to working at present. That, to someone like MIND Chief Executive Paul Farmer, really does seem like madness. Likewise charity bosses have no real understanding of why it might be dangerous to allow other bosses to snoop around your health records. Bosses think bosses are lovely people who would never abuse their powers – or at least not without a damn good reason. And bosses know best, they tell each other that all the time. Charity bosses in particular have their own view of themselves as benevolent experts confirmed everyday by politicians and journalists who would far rather talk to them than someone on the dole. Their whopping salaries provide further proof of their own ability. As do arse-licking middle managers who continually tell them how wonderful and clever they are, to their faces at least. So Paul Farmer must be is right because he’s Paul Farmer and MIND are right because they are MIND and anyone criticising them just doesn’t understand. Because they are not experts. That’s how MIND alongside other disability and anti-poverty charities can so easily dismiss the demands of grassroots campaigns comprising of disabled people and benefit claimants. Groups which are more or less united in calling for benefit sanctions and the WCA to be scrapped completely. These people are not experts. At worst they might even be service users. And you don’t want them getting too uppity. Before you know where you are you’ll have working class people running organisations together to address working class problems. Then there’d be nothing at all for poor Paul Farmer to do. He might even have to get a real job. https://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/2015/02/13/middle-class-solutions-to-working-class-problems-is-why-charities-like-mind-keep-getting-it-so-wrong/

Disabled people feeling the pain from workfare, the misery must end !

The number of claimants on sickness and disability benefits facing sanctions looks set to have doubled since December last year. 11,400 claims were slashed for failure to participate in work related activity or missing a meeting with the Jobcentre in the seven months between December 2012 and June 2013. This compares to 10,130 sanctions inflicted on claimant's of sickness or disability benefits in the previous 12 months. Sanctions have also soared for people on the mainstream unemployment benefit Jobseeker's Allowance, with the DWP boasting today that over half a million claims have been sanctioned between November 2012 and June 2013. Benefit sanctions lead to desperate poverty and are often handed out for the most trivial of reasons. A recent report by Citizens Advice warned that sanctions have led to people to attempting suicide, becoming homeless or resorting to begging or going through bins for food. This is all wonderful news according to Employment Minister Esther McVey who today proclaimed: "We always make the rules very clear – it’s only right that there is a penalty if people fail to play by them." The trouble is many do play by the rules as they are known but still find themselves sanctioned and in deprivation as a result including many disabled people. There are many reports of people being sanctioned for some incredible reasons and many are quite farcicle if we are honest. At the fantastic Johnny Void blog who i follow closely now on a recent post Johnny writes "Astonishingly many of those who have faced sanctions will have been plunged into poverty by charities who have been only too happy to sell out their service users for free workers and lucrative Work Programme contracts. Household names including the Salvation Army (@salvationarmyuk), YMCA (@YMCA_England) and The Conservation Volunteers (@tcvtweets) have all defended these vicious measures whilst employing countless unpaid workers under threat of sanctions on mandatory workfare schemes. Members of the Disability Works coalition have also got their snouts in the trough. Some of those on sickness or disability benefits who were sanctioned will have had benefits slashed due to 'compliance doubts' raised by charities such as SCOPE (@scope), Mencap (@mencap_charity) and MIND (@mindcharity). These so-called charities are Work Programme sub-contractors and have agreed to report back to the Jobcentre if a claimant misses a meeting or fails to attend 'work related activity'. Charities claiming to support disabled people are now complicit in destroying people's lives by snitching to the DWP that they aren't trying hard enough to find a job. This is despite these claimants having undergone a notorious Atos assessment which has agreed that they are unable to work at present. Appalling however sick and disabled claimants can still be sent to work unpaid on the Work Programme or face sanctions. They may be unfit for work, but they are fit for workfare in the eyes of the DWP. With yet more workfare planned, alongside ludicrous new 'conditionality' for unemployment benefits which expects people to spend 35 hours a week looking for non-existent jobs, the number of sanctions is likely to rise even further. The poverty now being socially engineered by the DWP is unprecedented in living memory in the UK. In one of the richest countries in the world people are now being left to go hungry or homeless with the collusion of charities - whilst the Labour Party boasts they will be even tougher on unemployed or disabled claimants than the Tories. It is down to claimants themselves - and all those who support a welfare state that does not abandon people to destitution for any reason - to fight back against this callous war on the poor. A good place to start is the Week of Action Against Workfare beginning on 2nd December, please spread the word, tweet and share: http://www.boycottworkfare.org/?p=3060 There is also a petition (I know) on 38 Degrees calling for all sanctions to be scrapped. Please sign/share etc: http://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/benefit-sanctions-must-be-stopped-without-exceptions-in-uk (It's not all doom and gloom. Disabled people fighting the closure of the Independent Living Fund today had a major victory in the courts.) Above pic via the Benefit Claimants Fightback group on facebook. Follow me on twitter @johnnyvoid For quotes and extracts with thanks to Johnny over at http://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/2013/11/06/benefit-sanction-rate-doubles-for-sick-and-disabled-claimantss/

Voter’s attitudes towards the poor turning harder socialist alt needed

It is not a surprise to me really that the more scrounger, shirker, and benefit scrounging scum rhetoric that is pumped out that the more our social attitudes harden. It is now the case that56% of us now think unemployed people could find a job if they wanted one (up from 27% in 1993)” This sort of figure shows the entrenched ideas now that many people have. As the left has failed to give any real alternative and the labour party has to take much of the blame for this moving further and further to the right to in the last period in government it is no wonder people are hardening their attitudes to the poor. It is not uncommon now for someone struggling by receiving benefits be it in or out of work now detests those on benefits even though they themselves are on benefits too. It’s a mad set of ideas when you feel no empathy for someone in the same boat as yourselves now. Labour party supporters increasingly believe that welfare recipients are undeserving and that the welfare state encourages dependence, with a noticeable share saying that poverty is caused by a personal failing rather than a problem with society, a landmark study reveals. A report for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation examined the links between public attitudes to poverty, welfare and the state of the economy using data collected as part of the British Social Attitudes survey. It found that the traditional view that the poor were seen sympathetically during recessions has disappeared, with support for welfare "largely confined (to) recipients of unemployment benefits". The report says there is a "general trend" where the public accepts that individual characteristics rather than societal issues cause poverty. Most striking was that this change over the past 30 years can be put down to the shifting opinions of Labour voters. Just 27% of the country's leading left-wing party voters cite social injustice as the main cause of poverty, down from 41% during the height of Thatcherism back in 1986. During the same time Labour supporters blaming the individual rose from 13% to 22%. What the foundation seems to pinpoint is a major cultural shift. Almost half of Labour supporters – 47% – surveyed in 2011 said if benefits were not as generous, people would learn to stand on their own feet, up from 17% in 1987. Labour supporters also increasingly think that welfare recipients are undeserving – from 21% in 1987 to 31% in 2011. While the debates around welfare have shifted to the right, Labour supporters moved in greater numbers than those in other parties – with left-wing voters stressing personal agency and individual responsibility. However, there was marked public support for tackling child poverty – a key issue identified by the last Labour administration. In 2009, 82% viewed reducing child poverty as "very important", with almost three-quarters (74%) saying this is a task for government. Julia Unwind, Chief Executive of the foundation, said: "The stark findings of this report highlight the increasingly tough stance people are taking against people in poverty. We appear to be tough on those experiencing poverty, but not tough on its causes. "Reductions in pensioner and child poverty over the past 20 years show hardship is not inevitable. But the debate must go beyond a fixation with welfare and benefits tinkering – without jobs with proper wages and affordable housing and childcare, progress will hit the buffers. Charities demanded that policymakers must take into account the effect of a stagnating economy on the poor, rather than just following poll data. Will Higham, Save the Children UK Director, said: "Despite public attitudes seeming to harden in the past few years towards welfare the public are very clear that they want to see the government cut child poverty. Sixty percent of children growing up in poverty have at least one parent working. "Despite this, many families still struggle to afford basics with many children going without decent food, clothes and a warm home. Times are very tough right now for the poorest families and they need real tangible solutions such as a living wage if they are to escape poverty and the stigma that comes with it." For me this makes the need for a new works party on a mass scale being able to challenge this perception work to change the direction of the political debate. As socialists we may disagree with these polls but I’ve witnessed it with my own ears in local pubs and bars. It’s everywhere we look this sort of attitude. It is a direct legacy of Thatcher who told us we were all individuals and there was no such thing as society. Where in the past more would care these days we’re drummed into our heads to only think of ourselves and some quite frankly do unfortunately. We are starting from a long way back with attitudes like this but change can come and events will shift opinions. We must be there to challenge the right’s ideas wherever we can look to provide a socialist alternative to the problems we face today.

capitalist Britain, food package handouts on the rise

Figures from a charity suggest a sharp rise in demand on charities for food.

Fareshare, which redirects food trade surpluses to those in need, said its donations were reaching 35,000 people a day, up from 29,000 a day last year.

The organisation said it had seen the largest annual increase in the number of charities asking for handouts.

Fareshare said low-income families were struggling with rising food prices, and one in three charities it surveyed was facing government funding cuts.

Unprecedented demand

The charity has 17 locations around the UK and passes on good quality supplies from the British food industry to a wide network of organisations such as homeless hostels, women's refuges, day centres and after-school clubs.

It said that in the year to April it provided 8.6 million meals to 600 groups, and this year it was facing unprecedented demand from some 700 organisations.

The organisation, which works with more than 100 companies in the food and drink industry, said 42% of the charities it surveyed reported an increase in demand for food in the past year.

Some 65% of the charities were slashing food budgets in an effort to stay afloat, it found, according to responses from 150 community members from organisations Fareshare supplies.

Fareshare said there has been an "increase in people and the types of people" seeking food from the charities.

In the past, its donations commonly went to homeless people and refugee charities but more "destitute families" were now among its recipients.

Fareshare chief executive Lindsay Boswell said: "At a time of unprecedented demand we want the food industry and the general public to increase their support."

He added: "This research supports the growing anecdotal evidence we've seen in recent months - more people are getting in touch with Fareshare asking for help to access food.




This news comes as no surprise to myself and many other socialists who have been reporting this sort of story for months. This sort of story twill get more air time now as it is starting to affect lower middle class families too and only then do the media like the BBC sit up and take note. But the factis that big food producing companies will give little of the surplus to food charities and would rather put it in landfill as there is no profit to be made in excess food they feel. Homesless people and working class families who need food wont be able to pay anything towards this so they dont feel its worth them investing in such projects.

Like any capitalist they will only invest and do something if there is a profit thre to be made.

Isnt it outrageous that in Britain one of the so called richest nations in the world has some of its poorest people living off food handouts and cant afford to feed themselves. What a devastating blow to capitalism that it cannot even feed its own countries people let alone the worlds population.

I can only predict sadly that this story will keep coming back and coming back untill something is done to rid us of this profit driven greedy society based on explitation.

This news story touch's on people who do work who cannot afford to feed themselves not just the homeless. Doesnt this tell you that wages are far too low for people to live on with labours minimum wage now looking a pittance for people to live on with food prices rocketing it is no wonder peoploe are struggling at the bottom of society.

A quote from peter Taaffe i read over the weekend that austerity what we are going through right now should be given its proper name "planned povety". i think peter sums it up pretty well there as that is exactly what it is. When a capitalist cant make a profit it will not spend and could not care less who suffers because of it. Harsh but true this is the system we live under and the system i want to see ended.

There is more than enough food produced every day for the whole world to eat if we had a system based on peoples needs before profits benifiting the many not just the few we'd be much better off. The system i'm talking about is socialism. A planned economy run by the workers, for the workers where peoples needs come first. No one more equal than anyone else.

how the big society is undermining existing volunteers and charities

As i blogged abaout earlier in this week leading charities have come out in anger at David Camerons "big society" idea. They feel that the big society will not work due to lack of funding.

I just wanted to add more meat to the bone really.

i know a few friends who volunteer. One especially one volunteers at a homeless charity in London. Crisis. They do some excellent work on and off the streets. For David Cameron to come in and announce we all must be doing more voluntary work is a bit insulting to these very hard workers who give up their time to help those not as fortunate as others. Which in itself is wrong. But i'll tackle that in anothetr post another time.

Butfor a prime minister who has never volunteered in his life i would imagine to startto preach to us we should be doing more for less while he takes away a lot of funding for charitable sectors is downright insulting i'd have thought.

Our charities and voluntary organisations in this country do some amazing work. Helping vunrable people back on to their feet with support and aid.

We have some great things in this country so i feel that David cameron should look at what we already have and look to preserve our great organisations who do very good things in the face of some tough conditions sometimes.

I think tories such as cameron should pay more tribute to these excellent charities and volunteers across our great country. They do a excellent job and give up their time for nothing to help people improve their life in many ways.

The big society to me is a big con. Someone on twitter earlier in the week we should focus more on building the good society. Well waht do all these terms really mean? they are just soundbytes and catchphrases that political types use to make them sound like they are doing some good for society as a whole and not just for their own political class.

Some perspective is needed on this whole big society rubbish really. what does it mean and how is it better than our voluntary sector we have at the moment, as i dont think it is. Its all political jargon that means nothing to the everyday person on the streets.

spending cuts put tories "big society at risk"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12378974

The government's spending cuts are "destroying" volunteering and undermining its "big society" vision, the head of a leading charity has said.

Dame Elisabeth Hoodless, who is retiring from the Community Service Volunteers (CSV) after 36 years, said there was no "strategic plan".

She told the Times the "massive" council cuts would make it harder for people to do more in their communities.

Ministers insist they are creating new sources of funds for voluntary groups.

The government has said it will be investing £470m over the next four years in charities and voluntary groups to give them independence from state money.

But Dame Elisabeth told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "The cuts that are being imposed on local government and the health service are taking place now.

"So there are a lot of very worthwhile programmes - for example volunteers working in child protection as promoted by the minister for children - which are now under threat of closure."


This must be all very worrying for Mr Cameron who seems to strongly believe in this big society rubbish he seems to spurt alot. Does anyone actually truely know what it means really ?

Lets face facts the article above from the BBC excellently outlines how this cannot work and will turn out to be a big fad. People who have jobs cannot give up their time to volunteer where public services have been taken away. Its a con and a smokescreen to mask the fact key local public services are being scrapped or sold off. I have seen through this idea right from the start. Now spending cuts are starting to hit so is everybody else. I would love to see a survey of how many people understand what the "big society" is and if they are in favour of it ?. The fact of the matter as the article above also explains the charitable sector and voluntary sector often called the 3rd sector have been covering a lot of what this "big society" is meant to be for years. organisations like the Citizens advice bureau. have been offering these services for years and years. Why put these excellent organisations at risk by cutting their funding and then say we still want the services but you'll have to find the money from somewhere else. Where do David Cameron and his pals down at Tory HQ expect these charities to find the money from in this day and age ?

Hugely out of touch i might suggest.

More big society ideas encouraging us to donate more to charities

So the latest idea from the tories and their big society idea which i'm still convinced is a big smokescreen for these massive savage cuts they are putting through at the moment is this idea of when people go to pay for things or take cash out of a cash machine with their card they will be asked if they wish to donate moeny to charity.

This is another barmy idea from the government while they are cutting funding to charitiesand the 3rd sector of voluntary work they are then saying well joe public can fill the gap by donating more. This is all veryw ell well not really but it would be if people had more disposable money to give away. This is simply not the case when people are loosing jobs every week and are finding themselves shorter and shorter in terms of money.

I just think this big society idea is all badly thought out and badly timed. It is insensitive to charities to remove their funding in a tough time like this and also nudge people as they call it in to donating more money to charity in what is probably one of the worst economic crisis ever witnessed in the wester world. It is complete maddness.

People are not afraid to donate to charity but only when they can afford such donations.

My suggestion would be if the toriesa are so obsessed with people donating more money to charity then they should use some of their millions they sit on and donate some of that to charity.

Making the rich spread some of their wealth around would bea fairer idea to me. It is just not on that the rich tories get to tell us what we should be doing with our money when they lord up their millions and tell us what to do with ours.

Just another fail from the out of touch tory lead coalition government i'm afraid.