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Many of us are affected by the current Cost of Living Crisis and the effects it could have on our mental health and the mental health of others in society. In light of this, MQ has helped create a new report that includes recommendations to help us all cope. In it, these recommendations include specific suggestions for individuals, organisations, services and the government to improve our chances of navigating the rising cost of living whilst looking after our mental health.
Alex Winterbotham, Founder of OmBeond – a production studio and consultancy producing immersive experiences and products to improve mental and physical health – contributed to the research in the report and reflects on the outcomes in this article.
MQ Mental Health’s timely report into our mental health in a worsening Cost of Living Crisis makes a series of essential and lateral recommendations for us all. I was delighted to take part in the multi-disciplinary consultation, and my main reflections focused on three key areas and are as follows:
Healthcare providers should dramatically increase collaborations with grassroots organisations (of all kinds).
This would mean they could best understand the nuances of what is being faced at all levels of society and to foster diverse innovation and opportunity.
Nothing gets better by putting the same brains together again and again.
KEY TAKEAWAY: Collaboration with grassroots organisations. Diversity equals progress.
As they currently stand, mental health and well-being interventions reach only a very small percentage of those they need to.
For us to make real progress, we need to address the huge technological proficiency and accessibility gap, which prevails in the world of digital therapeutics (as one example).
Personalised, intuitive and flexible, multi-modal solutions can point to future answers.
KEY TAKEAWAY: Solutions need to be found for making treatment available to more people. Digital therapy could be one such solution.
- Compassion and Nuance Is Necessary
Not only would individuals benefit from a more compassionate and nuanced understanding of personal mental health circumstances, but so would organisations as a whole.
Increasing nuance and compassion in our approach would reduce the lazy reliance on the ‘one-size-fits-all’ solutions which are being clumsily commoditised and scaled.
These one-size-fits-all approaches often have only superficial impact and, critically, do not reach those who are both most financially and mentally vulnerable in our society.
KEY TAKEAWAYS: Generalised approaches help no one. Nuance is much needed in every approach.
Our thanks to Alex for sharing his thoughts on our report. To find out more about OmBeond visit their website and to find out more about our Cost of Living Crisis Report click here.
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