I live in Salford where I’m part of Salford Poverty Truth Commission (PTC).
In the first round of Salford PTC, before I joined, they did some work together around how the local council communicates bad news to people. They stopped sending brown envelopes – they’re white now – and the letters offer help and assistance. When these changes came, I’d never even heard of a PTC, I didn’t know why the changes had happened. But they made a big difference to me and my mental health.
I’ve had a lot of experience of poor communications having a negative impact on my mental health. This has been from a variety of sources including from Government – this has been the main focus of the Brown Envelope Code work.
However, my experience of brown envelope syndrome has primarily been with debt collectors.
When my Mum died, my mental health suffered as a result. In the three months after her death, I got into a lot of debt. I went really quickly from having good credit to having nothing.
This debt has grown since, as I’ve struggled to repay it. The debts also get sold on a lot to other companies. This means that I receive a lot of communications from lots of different debt collectors. They text, call, email and send me post.
I have a cage to collect my post in when it comes through the door to stop the dog from eating it. The letters I get make me so anxious that sometimes I just let the cage fill up. This is what brown envelope syndrome looks like to me; a cage full of letters I know I’ll never be able to read because of my mental health.
When I do read them, however, the letters are threatening and impersonal. The impact on me is that I don’t know what to do from day to day. I don’t know who to open the door to. I’ve tried to find a local debt advisor who can help me get a Debt Relief Order, but I can’t find anyone who can help locally – one community organisation said to come back next year.
Despite all of this, the last few years have seen a change in me. I joined a peer support men’s group, and then Salford PTC. I no longer feel like I hate everyone, and I love to talk now! I’m even training as a counsellor.
My work with Salford PTC led me to the Amplify group in the Poverty Truth Network where we’ve developed this brown envelope code. I’ve really enjoyed the process of writing the code and I also know that it could make a big difference if some of the changes that have been made locally in Salford could be deployed nationally.
They’d make a big change to me, too; if the letters were less threatening, or gave me the name of someone to talk to, I know it would help me get out of debt. My hope is that every Government department, and every debt collector would read this code and use it in their communications.