Foodbanks

[Dogsauce]

No-one is going to got to the trouble of claiming £10 worth of substandard groceries unless they are pretty fucking skint - whether they meet the official criteria of not.

Substandard? That Mail bloke's haul had Granola in it, worth £3.50 apparently.

(I'd speculate that some Guardian-type got some on a BOGOF and decided they didn't like it after the first box so donated it)

 

[ViolentPanda]

I am somewhat intrigued, given the paucity of "intensive help" available to people in general with mental health problems, what the DWP's offering for those on benefits with mental health difficulties might be.

We've seen IAPT, which - while in principle having something to offer - has, in practice, been something of a hopeless intervention, with all kinds of dubious fraud around the outcome statistics, and relying on using extremely sketchily-trained practitioners to deal with only the simplest of problems, but if DWP really thinks something like that is going to have any validity in situations which are almost certainly guaranteed to be far more complex and intractable, they're sadly deluded.

And I can't see them paying for specialist psychological or psychotherapeutic help.

This is likely to be an extension of the state's previous excursions into CBT, where "practitioners" are low-grade, with certificates in "counselling skills" picked up after a short course, rather than high-quality, experienced mental-health professionals.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Substandard? That Mail bloke's haul had Granola in it, worth £3.50 apparently.

(I'd speculate that some Guardian-type got some on a BOGOF and decided they didn't like it after the first box so donated it)

Granola may not be a substandard product, but it certainly tastes substandard!

 

[existentialist]

This is likely to be an extension of the state's previous excursions into CBT, where "practitioners" are low-grade, with certificates in "counselling skills" picked up after a short course, rather than high-quality, experienced mental-health professionals.

My confident prediction, in that case, is that they will do more harm than good.

It's one thing inflicting one-page-ahead-in-the-book practitioners on the worried well, but a lot of those who will be on the DWP's radar as "having mental health problems" are going to be people with long-standing, quite probably complex, issues, dual diagnosis stuff, dependency issues, and with all the lifestyle choices and faulty reasoning that goes with having to survive in such a state without any access to help, possibly for decades.

When they start dropping people into the equation with lots of upbeat "you're not really unwell, just do these exercises and you'll be fine. OR WE'LL HAVE YOUR FUCKING BENEFITS OFF YOU, DOLESCUM!" nonsense, the number of ways it can go runny and trickle messily out of the corners will be beyond imagination.

Solution-focused work - and that's one of the buzzwords they'll be creaming themselves about - certainly can be effective, but usually not when it is blatantly and single-mindedly the case from the outset...especially not with patients with complex needs. And especially in spades not when the practitioner is sufficiently clueless as to be unaware of what they don't know or aren't seeing. Inept, heavy-handed interventions in such cases almost certainly will make patients/clients worse.

 

[panpete]

My confident prediction, in that case, is that they will do more harm than good.

It's one thing inflicting one-page-ahead-in-the-book practitioners on the worried well, but a lot of those who will be on the DWP's radar as "having mental health problems" are going to be people with long-standing, quite probably complex, issues, dual diagnosis stuff, dependency issues, and with all the lifestyle choices and faulty reasoning that goes with having to survive in such a state without any access to help, possibly for decades.

When they start dropping people into the equation with lots of upbeat "you're not really unwell, just do these exercises and you'll be fine. OR WE'LL HAVE YOUR FUCKING BENEFITS OFF YOU, DOLESCUM!" nonsense, the number of ways it can go runny and trickle messily out of the corners will be beyond imagination.

Solution-focused work - and that's one of the buzzwords they'll be creaming themselves about - certainly can be effective, but usually not when it is blatantly and single-mindedly the case from the outset...especially not with patients with complex needs. And especially in spades not when the practitioner is sufficiently clueless as to be unaware of what they don't know or aren't seeing. Inept, heavy-handed interventions in such cases almost certainly will make patients/clients worse.

I think that is what it is designed to do.
Get rid of all the useless eaters.

 

[existentialist]

I think that is what it is designed to do.
Get rid of all the useless eaters.

Well, we're going to have to differ on the question of intent - not least because I'd rather be wrong this way than the other way - but yes, I think the outcome is going to be the same: people dying earlier because of government policy.

 

[DotCommunist]

I think IDS may want to introduce daily signing, but squaring that with staffing cuts and hours in the day might find that verminous twat at odds with reality. Again

 

[SikhWarrioR]

I think IDS may want to introduce daily signing, but squaring that with staffing cuts and hours in the day might find that verminous twat at odds with reality. Again

Er since when has iain duncan shit ever met reality

 

[existentialist]

Er since when has iain duncan shit ever met reality

I live for the day when it happens. Better yet that there were cameras to record the event.

 

[SikhWarrioR]

I live for the day when it happens. Better yet that there were cameras to record the event.

I would settle for iain duncan smith's face and my fist

 

[treelover]

Let's take politics out of the food banks debate
Too often the discussion becomes a polarised political argument. What is needed is a dispassionate look at long-term causes

http://www.theguardian.com/commenti...-politics-out-food-banks-debate?commentpage=1

Tory attempts to 'depoliticise' the growth and useage of food banks, some of them are clearly worried about the electoral impact of the fall out for this.

 

[weepiper]

Let's take politics out of the food banks debate

Let's not.

 

[treelover]

This philanthropy thing isn't quite working out as planned is it? Food Banks aren't some great and wonderfully interminable Harvest Festival, where those who have, graciously donate on the altars by the supermarket doors and the have nots doff their caps in gratitude at the boundless generosity of their betters.
People are donating by their thousands but not as Lord and Lady Bountifuls, but citizens who are outraged, indignant and disgusted at this Government, and that because of them, in our country, in this century, such a thing should be necessary.
Not political? It's the biggest political event of this century so far.

on CIF, she has got it right, it is not working out they way they wanted.

 

[panpete]

I don't think food banks are disgusting, but I think that the need for them is.
If the welfare system safety net was a safety net, there would be no need for them.
The torys are taking away basic human rights. Surely food is a basic human right, or it was, before the tories got all nasty.

 

[treelover]

They have also revealed that the prime minister's constituency office called the police when one of the country's most senior bishops visited last week to deliver a letter about food poverty - and suggested this reveals a sense of panic over the issue.
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/fe...es-food-banks-cameron-201442075222549798.html

Rattled?

that the police were called when a very senior bishop called to see them, is imo a major news story,

nah, didn't see it on the news.

 

[Awesome Wells]

Substandard? That Mail bloke's haul had Granola in it, worth £3.50 apparently.

(I'd speculate that some Guardian-type got some on a BOGOF and decided they didn't like it after the first box so donated it)

I doubt they even went there; I think the whole thing was staged. In my opinion they couldn't get into the food bank because they couldn't secure a referral so they lied and went to the supermarket and presented that as if they had.

We also don't know which shop they used to price their stuff.

 

[Awesome Wells]

Tory attempts to 'depoliticise' the growth and useage of food banks, some of them are clearly worried about the electoral impact of the fall out for this.

Look at the face of the author! He looks like a fucking cartoon, like something out of the Sims!

 

[weepiper]

I doubt they even went there; I think the whole thing was staged. In my opinion they couldn't get into the food bank because they couldn't secure a referral so they lied and went to the supermarket and presented that as if they had.

We also don't know which shop they used to price their stuff.

Dunno how legit this is as it's clearly a screenshot of the comments on a website but still:

 

[treelover]

It's CIF in the Guardian, its legit

That F/B manager 'Bestwood' is amazing, he is giving it right back to the Mail.

 

[Awesome Wells]

I think it's both telling and hilarious that Conservative Home has sent someone that looks like a helper avatar for fonline customer service from 1997 to downplay the politics of the situation.

 

[Awesome Wells]

It's CIF in the Guardian, its legit

That F/B manager 'Bestwood' is amazing, he is giving it right back to the Mail.

So the guy did give the food he stole back; I guess we should be grateful. A tenner donation? I guess the wages of sin aren't so great after all. Sorry I don't have much sympathy for Mr. Slater and his cronies.

 

[J Ed]

I can't believe he only gave them 10 quid.

 

[Dogsauce]

Stuff like the bread would have been no good by then. I bet he kept the granola too.

 

[Awesome Wells]

I can't believe he only gave them 10 quid.

Mail journalist. Nuff said.

I have no compunction labelling this tosser a selfish thick cunt, the same as the others involved.

 

[8ball]

Rattled?

that the police were called when a very senior bishop called to see them, is imo a major news story,

 

[ViolentPanda]

So the guy did give the food he stole back; I guess we should be grateful. A tenner donation? I guess the wages of sin aren't so great after all. Sorry I don't have much sympathy for Mr. Slater and his cronies.

In Slater's case, the wages of sin should be traditional: Death.

 

[Kaka Tim]

Daily Mail: how our reporter dialled 999 and got an ambulance – no questions asked!

http://tompride.wordpress.com/2014/...-999-and-got-an-ambulance-no-questions-asked/

 

[Schmetterling]

Rattled?

that the police were called when a very senior bishop called to see them, is imo a major news story,

nah, didn't see it on the news.

What! The! Fuck?

 

[treelover]

How to start a foodbank: the story of Luton Foodbank
April 21, 2014

As the Daily Mail attacks foodbanks, Mark Boothroyd of Southwark Left Unity looks at how they are really run – and calls for the left to rediscover its traditions of mutual aid
What place does food hold in the constellation of human needs? Maslow’s hierarchy of human need puts food among the base of human needs, alongside breathing, water, sex, homeostasis, sleep and excretion. It should be clear to all that food is a basic need, which is central to a cohesive, stable, humane society. Bertolt Brecht wrote in The Threepenny Opera, “First comes feeding, then comes morality.” If you cannot obtain food to feed yourself, then all other questions of culture, morality, law and right become secondary or meaningless.
What then will be the social impact of the government’s widespread and growing starvation of hundreds of thousands of its citizens? The impact of the brutal and draconian welfare reforms that rob tens of thousands of their only means of subsistence is driving as many as 500,000 people to access foodbanks across the country. The Trussell Trust, a Christian foodbank with some links to the Labour and Tory parties, has doubled the number of foodbanks it supports in just one year. The Trussell Trust had predicted demand of 200,000 for 2012-13. The latest reports say they have distributed almost a million food parcels in 2013-14. As the Trussell Trust only manages 37% of foodbanks in Britain, the total number of food parcels distributed will be much higher. The Mirror reported that 45 foodbanks distributed 182,000 food parcels between them.
http://leftunity.org/how-to-start-a...dium=rss&utm_campaign=how-to-start-a-foodbank

While the need is massive and its great to have mutual aid, are F/B's basically a sticking plaster on capitals wounds, could they become normalised?

 

[8ball]

While the need is massive and its great to have mutual aid, are F/B's basically a sticking plaster on capitals wounds, could they become normalised?

The plan is very much to normalise them.