An insider's view on our Money and Mental Health internship

I have been in the Money and Mental Health internship programme for five months now, and sadly I am rapidly approaching the end of my time here. In doing so, I naturally begin to reflect upon my experiences whilst here; my motivation for joining the team, and where my career should take me from here.  

When the opportunity for an internship with Money and Mental Health arose, I was excited. I’d long been concerned about the impact of mental health problems on people’s cognitive processing and financial decision making. This is in part a result of my background in social care, and then working in financial services with consumers with mental health problems. In my work in financial services I recognised the same issues emerging time and again; people with mental health problems struggling to get the support they needed with managing their money. This made for quite frustrating times, and I began to want to move away from supporting customers individually, to addressing some of the issues in a more structural and systematic way, through influencing policy with regulators, the government and financial services. So when Martin Lewis set up Money and Mental Health in 2016, I knew I wanted to be a part of it, and closely followed their work. And when an internship opportunity arose, I knew I had to apply.

I was unclear quite what to expect when taking an internship position, as it’s something I’d not done before.  My main goal was to work in an organisation that challenges some of the systematic barriers people with mental health problems may face. Beyond this, I hoped to hone old skills, develop new ones, and get a breadth of experience, working within an organisation that is active in calling for change from regulators, financial services and government. This experience has far surpassed anything I could have hoped for.

My Money and Mental Health internship has spanned across all areas of the organisation: from public affairs, communications and events to policy and research. The advantage of this has been the scope of my experiences, learning completely new skills. It’s really difficult to pick out my personal highlights, but to give future applicants an idea of things they might do whilst here, here are just a few particularly interesting and memorable experiences.

• Attending the Labour party conference with the Head of External Affairs, where I had the opportunity to sit in on roundtable meetings and attend fringe events
• Compiling a fortnightly briefing for the rest of the team on parliamentary events, tracking events and discussions in parliament
• Attending the Gambling Commission annual conference where we launched our gambling paper, talking to key people in the industry
• Being a part of the research team on our latest project, conducting in-depth interviews, coding survey responses, and designing focus groups.

I have also been touched by the support and patience of all of my colleagues, spending time to share and involve me in what they do. My manager has gone above and beyond in tailoring my objectives and personal development to my area of interest in research and policy, and providing coaching sessions on influencing work and parliamentary and legislative process. As my time here has progressed so too has the complexity of the work I have been responsible for, and it has been positively stimulating and challenging.

I believe that I have gained a breadth of experience to move forward, and will be leaving here with a vastly improved skill set and knowledge base. Obviously I have some trepidation in looking for my next opportunity, but I truly believe that I have a sound foundation from which to move forward in my desired career path.

As my time in the Money and Mental Health internship draws to a close, the team have advertised for a new intern, this evokes in me some sadness that my time here is coming to an end, and excitement that someone else is going to have an opportunity for another amazing experience. If you want to to be a part of a team of people where you truly are working to make a difference and develop the skills and experiences to move your career forward, then take a look at our Money and Mental Health internship vacancy, you certainly won’t regret it.