Mental health and work pilots launched

03/10/14 . Blog

After the Men's Health Forum's report Sick of Being Unemployed was launched in June, the government announced it would do more to help the health of unemployed men. Now a new pilot project has been launched in four areas.

The BBC reports 'Mental health: Pilots to help people find work launched':

The government has launched four pilot schemes to help unemployed people with mental health problems find work.

The voluntary scheme will see some people on Employment and Support Allowance being offered employment support and psychiatric help.

Unemployment is bad for your health

The Men's Health Forum and Work Foundation report Sick of Being Unemployed highlights that becoming unemployed can make men ill and suffer with mental health problems in particular. 

Care and support minister Norman Lamb at the launch of Sick of Being UnemployedMore:

 

The Men’s Health Forum need your support

It’s tough for men to ask for help but if you don’t ask when you need it, things generally only get worse. So we’re asking.

In the UK, one man in five dies before the age of 65. If we had health policies and services that better reflected the needs of the whole population, it might not be like that. But it is. Policies and services and indeed men have been like this for a long time and they don’t change overnight just because we want them to.

It’s true that the UK’s men don’t have it bad compared to some other groups. We’re not asking you to ‘feel sorry’ for men or put them first. We’re talking here about something more complicated, something that falls outside the traditional charity fund-raising model of ‘doing something for those less fortunate than ourselves’. That model raises money but it seldom changes much. We’re talking about changing the way we look at the world. There is nothing inevitable about premature male death. Services accessible to all, a population better informed. These would benefit everyone - rich and poor, young and old, male and female - and that’s what we’re campaigning for.

We’re not asking you to look at images of pity, we’re just asking you to look around at the society you live in, at the men you know and at the families with sons, fathers and grandads missing.

Here’s our fund-raising page - please chip in if you can.

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