Although Craig suggestion is admirable not all of us on the list are on high salaries and even if we were I think most people would be resistant to recieving money in this fashion not withstanding the concepts of control and maintance of the status quo through charitable giving. It also doesn't overcome the individualistic ideology around debt. One of the most pernicous aspects of even the most recent and thoughful ethnographic investigations of debt is that we still cast things in terms of service users being victims of debt saved by the interventions of mental health staff see http://www.mhdebt.info/index2.html for an example.

Of course debt and especially poor quality debt (high interest rates more chance of getting harrased in person at your front door) is a huge problem in communities up and down the country. But we've taken that for granted as a society now. Just like we've taken it for granted that the average debt after a university education is over Ł13000 whereas a previous generation enjoyed student grants and free fees. (I luckily through have such a bad credit rating and a previous small student loan for a music course wasn't able to take a student loan for my degree which thankfully has left me debt-free although it wasn't much fun at the time). The more such things just fade into the background the worse it will be for those unable to negotiate the increasing toxic work market. The basic necessities in life such as housing,heating, council tax etc are all increasing. Alongside this we are being told to be more ecologically active at a time where both bus and train fares have increased in price. These things seems to melt into the background as indequate funding is given to the next debt counselling intervention...

Although there is some potential to counter this in email groups like freecycle other 'free' natural forms of exchange have altogether vanished like hitch hiking. Indeed people are paid to facillitate people in communities to share resources through time banks we set up a selfish system and then facillitate people with the smallest amount of resources to share what they barely have... Not to say that I don't think time banks can be useful or that people without fiscal resources don't have loads of strengths and more specifically time to offer... It just seems galling that such solutions are put forward as the only answers to the frankly shoking and increasing inequalities in society

Anyway that was more of a rant than a reasoned argument and is probably not saying anything that hasn't been said a hundred times before - so apologies for that!!

Craig Newnes <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Think small. Choose a family and share your salary with them for a year

Hello

I work in a primary care mental health service and in working with some people have been trying to think with them about substantial debts that are causing problems, which, without resolving, would continue to impact negatively on quality of life and mental health. We have challenged attempts to look at the problem soley in terms of the impact on the person and instead have explored ideas about credit industry interests and cultures of consumption associated with increasng debt in society, but ideally we would like to pursue some possible ways out of the debt sentence.

I would be very interested to hear views or suggestions you may have on how we may address this.

Best wishes, Nicola

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