Mental Health and Money Toolkit: Supporting service users to Talk Money
Published on:
29 May 2025
The Money and Pensions Service (MaPS) have worked with partners to distribute a Mental Health and Money Toolkit. The toolkit was developed for service users to work through and offers a way to help healthcare professionals and frontline practitioners talk to the people they support about mental health and money difficulties. Here, practitioners from Scotland and Northern Ireland share how they have used it in practice.
What is the Mental Health and Money Toolkit?
The Mental Health and Money Toolkit is a free resource designed to help people understand, manage and improve their mental and financial health. Practitioners are encouraged to distribute the toolkit and work with service users at their own pace to help them understand, manage and improve their mental and financial wellbeing.
Developed by Mental Health UK, a charity made up of Rethink Mental Illness (England), Change Mental Health (Scotland), Mindwise (NI) and Adferiad Recovery (Wales), the toolkit was funded by the Department of Health and Social Care and has been used by healthcare professionals and money and debt advisers across the UK to have conversations about money with the people they support.
The link between mental health and money
There is a well-established link between mental health and money.
In 2021, our Adult Financial Wellbeing survey found that 74% of people who had experienced a recent mental health problem said that they struggle to keep up with bills and payments.
In the same year, we conducted a smaller survey of 3,000 UK adults and discovered that 91% of people who are struggling with their mental health avoid talking about money, often because they feel embarrassment, guilt or shame.
We already know that a lot of people find it difficult to open up about their finances, but talking about money can have a positive effect on a person’s mental health.
Research shows that discussing money can:
- strengthen personal relationships
- build a person’s financial confidence
- lead to better and less risky financial decisions
- make people feel less stressed, anxious and more in control.
As a healthcare professional, or frontline practitioner, the Mental Health and Money Toolkit can help you to break down some of these barriers and have conversations about mental health and money with the people you support.
What is in the toolkit?
The toolkit is made up of six easy-to-follow sections:
- Mental health and money: Where to start
- Getting ready to take action
- Understanding your finances
- Navigating the benefit system
- Support
- Signposting and appointment planner
The toolkit also includes activity sheets. Completing these activity sheets is optional, but it can enable the user to build their confidence and problem-solving skills, as well as communicate their personal situation at any future mental health or money related appointments.
Use of the toolkit in practice
So, how are practitioners using the Mental Health and Money Toolkit in practice?
Scotland
Tara Broadfoot is a Community Link Worker in NHS Lanarkshire. Community Link Workers support patients with non-medical issues that may impact their health and wellbeing.
“We work closely with patients around financial struggles, which can affect their mental health. So, we support people around low levels of mental health and quite often, even people who have severe mental health concerns. It can be around finance and social issues that have had a massive effect on their mental health and wellbeing.”
As a practitioner, Tara feels that she has benefited from having the toolkit as a resource to guide her conversations.
“This toolkit was just absolutely brilliant because it has everything in one booklet. It looks professional and you also look like you know what you're talking about when you bring something like that out, so someone then feels like you're informed and you're knowledgeable about what you're supporting them with, which is also really beneficial.”
Northern Ireland
Samantha Irwin works as a Community Mental Health Nurse for the Northern Health and Social Care Trust.
Samantha used the toolkit to support a patient that had fallen into debt as a result of a lengthy depressive episode. Samantha explained how the toolkit helped the patient to identify which benefits he was entitled to, but not yet claiming.
“The book made him realise that his income wasn't enough to cover his bills and meet his own self-care needs.”
She added that using the toolkit gave the patient a new perspective and helped him to realise that there was more financial help and support available for him to access.
“Generally speaking, it’s very, very clear in the book and it's well laid out that people can take it away and fill it in and then bring it back if they want me to have a look and see where we can support them.”
Outcomes influenced by the toolkit
We commissioned Ecorys UK, a research consultancy, to carry out six case studies that would help us understand how the toolkit was being used in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
The practitioners that they spoke to highlighted positive outcomes for their service users, including:
- reduced stress
- continuity in care
- a sense of empowerment over their financial situation
- better and more effective interactions with money advice and healthcare services.
They also noted that the practitioners said that the toolkit:
- gave them a better understanding of a service user's background
- improved their confidence when talking about money and mental health
- made them feel more supported when questioning money matters
- provided a joined-up approach to care.
Download the Mental Health and Money Toolkit
The Mental Health and Money Toolkit is available to download for practitioners in all four UK nations.
Download the toolkit for:
How to request physical copies of the toolkit
If your organisation would like physical copies of the toolkit, please email [email protected]Opens in a new window.
Please note that there is a minimum order of 20.