Our week at Money and Mental Health: exploring financial education and mental health

This week, we were fortunate enough to be able to join Money and Mental Health for a week of work experience. We all study at schools across London and will be sitting our A-levels next year. Biran is studying English Literature, history and politics with Arlinda studying biology, psychology, sociology and finance and Shreya studying economics, maths and further maths. 

We were able to use our skills to look at qualitative and quantitative responses to a survey in our Research Community from last week.

This week, we analysed the results of a survey which explored the Research Community’s experiences of financial education. We discovered that there is a significant gap in the financial education received by adults in the Research Community. An astounding 74% of respondents reported that they have never received any formal financial education. Notably, 81% of people who lacked financial education said they were either never offered it or unaware it existed.

At Money and Mental Health, we focus on the financial challenges faced by individuals struggling with poor mental health. Money and Mental Health’s work highlights a vicious cycle: financial problems can lead to mental health problems, and mental health struggles can exacerbate financial burdens. 

Greater provision and awareness of financial education tools, such as financial literacy courses for adults, could potentially help alleviate some of the stress and anxiety associated with financial difficulty, by helping people to feel more in control of their finances.

In the survey, a number of respondents highlighted the importance of personalised support when it came to financial education and how to manage their money. One respondent stated:

This need for personalised support is crucial as financial education may not be accessible or comprehensible to people with disabilities – despite financial management being a critical part of everyday life. Additionally, disabled people are more likely to have lower incomes, and rely on benefits like Personal Independence Payments. This means people with disabilities, including those with mental health problems, often have to budget tightly to afford necessities like therapy or prescriptions on top of their day-to-day expenditure.

Financial education is an important building block in how we are able to manage our finances in our everyday lives – helping us to feel more confident and in control of our money. 

Money and Mental Health’s previous research has shown how the cost of living crisis has had a significant impact on people’s mental health, and is contributing to people feeling anxious and overwhelmed. 

By improving access to financial education, for example by teaching young people in school about how to manage their finances, it could help people feel less overwhelmed and helpless about their financial situation later in life. And, for some, it could even help to prevent financial problems from developing in the first place.

We enhanced our skills working with qualitative and quantitative data, while learning the value of teamwork through collaboration on group projects. We were also adaptive in the work that we did by discussing ideas together and learning from each other. The team here ensured we were able to get in depth feedback on our work while being very open to any questions we had.

Our work experience has been amazing. We’ve been treated as coworkers and have had the chance to experience different aspects of Money and Mental Health’s work by working on research, helping with external communications and taking part in meetings.