This interview was conducted by Zoom on 12th May 2021 between ESTHER and one of our partner charities in the UK, PIPS (Public Initiative for Prevention of Suicide and Self Harm).
Mollie Drew (ESTHER Strategic Partnerships Manager), Interviewer.
ESTHER connects people in need directly with donors via trusted charities. People in crisis receive donations directly on an ESTHER card with restrictions to protect money for the most helpful purchases.
Mollie spoke to Martina McIlkenny (PIPS Care Team Manager) about the use and effect of ESTHER Giving cards with a selected number of recipients in financial distress.
PIPS Charity exists to provide support to individuals who are considering, or who have at some point considered, ending their own lives. PIPS also provides support to those families & friends who have been touched by suicide.
MOLLIE: As it is Mental Health Awareness week we wanted to bring you some information and updates on our PIPS Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Program which is currently taking place in Belfast.
We have Martina here who is going to do a quick Q&A with us but first a little bit about why we started the programme:
Belfast was hit with a mental health crisis during the pandemic and people needed urgent care. PIPS Services were stretched to their limit and the partnership with ESTHER came at just the right time to provide that extra support for their recipients.
So Martina, would you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about how the recipients have been getting on…
MARTINA: I am Martina Mcilkenny and I’m the Care Team Manager within PIPS. My job is to look after the counsellors and, more importantly, the clients.
Lockdown last year came in March and as we all know it was an extremely difficult time for everybody, but it was even harder for people out there who had mental health problems and couldn’t cope.
Then along came ESTHER.
I just thought this whole thing with the card and helping people by giving them money was like a dream — and I realized the next day that no it wasn’t a dream, they are going to help us.
So we identified clients who were struggling and I mean really struggling, both financially and mentally. Of course, when you are struggling financially it is going to affect you mentally as well.
So ESTHER was going to give us a card for each of our clients — and I just want to share some of the feedback from these recipients:
“I was struggling with the children, I struggled financially day by day. I am so delighted with the extra money and I’ve been able to have a meal together once a week with my family.”
When I asked her what she did the rest of the week with the meals, she said,
“I can’t settle, all the kids have different needs and they all have to be met first with different food. So I stand and cook for all of them and at the end of the night I just have a sandwich. But when I order something I can order something for us all. The rest of the night we all sit down and have a meal together,
it’s just beautiful.
It helps me the rest of the week as I know I can look forward to that coming. Being able to give my family a treat is delightful, everyone got their own wee delivery and the kids kept saying to me, ‘mummy thank you for this’ — and I would tell them, ‘no don’t thank me, thank ESTHER and PIPS’.”
I just thought that was lovely that she told them that!
She was also able to buy some sensory toys for her children too, which helped massively during lockdown when the kids were being homeschooled. The sensory toys really helped them to relax and concentrate on everything else.
She also said,
“without ESTHER I wouldn’t have got through this lockdown mentally. I don’t think I would be here.”
Another recipient also had some lovely feedback…
“It enabled me to de-stress and stop worrying, I have been able to focus on my own mental health.”
Before it wasn’t about her, it was about her children, and she felt like she didn’t have a voice.
She was able to focus more on her own mental health because she had less financial worries.
“The ESTHER card has helped immensely, it has made the family closer and less stressed. On Christmas morning I just cried because my children were so delighted with the gifts I had been able to get them.
Every other year I struggled to get a turkey, and we would have always just had a small chicken between us, but this year I was able to get one.”
This recipient was furloughed last year and then she lost her job in July.
She told me she could only see darkness ahead of her.
She couldn’t see any light.
And when ourselves (PIPS) stepped in alongside ESTHER and we started working together again, she then told me she could see light at the end of the tunnel.
MOLLIE: Martina sharing these stories is amazing and it’s just so brilliant to hear, could you tell us a bit more about when you lift the financial pressures for these people how it really allows them to focus on their mental health? How does that work?
MARTINA: Yes Mollie — when people are mentally stressed and they have financial worries too, their mental health gets pushed to the side and they don’t have time to focus on getting better. They are absorbed by being constantly in financial crisis, small examples like not being able to buy their children new uniform.
One of the clients didn’t realize how much she needed help until she had the chance to stop and realise how bad her mental health had suffered — after she was able to put the financial stuff to one side.
Only then was she able to focus on her mental health
We do evaluations on clients called CORE and at the start of her evaluation, I was really really worried and concerned. I could then see it lessening as the months on the ESTHER program went by, the score was getting lower and lower and lower. I could see clearly then that the money was actually helping them to be able to focus on themselves for once and think about their families as a whole.
Thank you, Mollie, and one last wee thing, I’d just like to thank ESTHER for the help you have given us and the help you have given our clients. I can see a difference in our own staff and clients too.
At the start the clients had their heads down and would shuffle in for their appointments, now they are so much brighter in themselves and they have brought in flowers and wee gifts for us to say thank you for all of the help.
They said to us,
“sorry I couldn’t give you more than this, because you gave me my life back.”
Our recipients are overwhelmed, they just keep telling me that it made such a huge difference to them, some people would say it’s not much money, but to them, it made all the difference to their lives. It was a lot of money and it helped them to finish their counselling as well — you can really see that they were able to focus on themselves.
MOLLIE: Collaboration between the counselling and soft services and then having direct financial support works so well together. We are seeing this across our other programs too — that when we give directly alongside other soft services we see incredible personal growth.
If you would like to support recipients on the ESTHER PIPS Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Program go HERE.
If you’d like any information on partnering (as a charity or community organisation), corporate giving opportunities or to help amplify the message then don’t hesitate to say hello!
To find out more about the work of PIPS Charity, you can find them here: www.pipscharity.com