Basic Income for Peace of Mind

From November last year until February the Basic Income Conversation worked with Basic Income Network Scotland to run the project Peace of Mind. This project looked at the links between money and mental health.

We spoke to people with personal and professional experience of mental health and the social security system to understand these links and how a basic income could support people to look after their mental health.

DOWNLOAD THE PEACE OF MIND PROJECT REPORT HERE

For #MentalHealthAwarenessWeek, 10 - 16 May 2021, we've teamed up with some of the project participants to write this open video letter. Asking ministers and mental health charities to start seriously considering the role of basic income.

Over the next few weeks the open letter gathered over 2,500 thousand signatures from people who want to see basic income explored as a preventative mental health measure.

At the start of July we handed the letter in to ministers, asking them to meet with us to discuss how we could work together on this. We will let you know how that goes!

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THE PROJECT

The project had four components:

• ‍Context: Two workshops where ten expert speakers talked about various aspects of basic income, mental health and the sustainable development goals.‍
• Discussion: Two workshops where participants considered the links between money and mental health and whether the security of a basic income would improve money related impacts on mental health.‍
• Stories: Workshops run by creative methods practitioners Kitrina Douglas and David Carless to help participants tell stories of their experiences with money and mental health.‍
• Action: Two workshops to consider the implications of the links between money and mental health found so far, the relevance to basic income pilots and what the participants wanted to see happen next. This led to the open letter.

DOWNLOAD THE PEACE OF MIND PROJECT REPORT HERE

THE STORIES

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