C O N T E X T 1 7 3 : S E P T E M B E R 2 0 2 2 33 DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION LAURA DRYSDALE Heritage and mental health People on low incomes, including many living with mental-health problems, are least likely to visit historic sites, but gain more wellbeing benefit than others when they do. ‘We had to be delicate with the stuff because you have to wear the gloves and everything. So in case they, like, fall apart… it was really interesting how careful you have to be.You have to treat these things like you would treat a human being basically’ (participant, Conservation forWellbeing).1 There is a chasm between what people living with mental-health challenges need and what is on offer. With 1.4 million people on NHS mental health waiting lists and collapsing staff recruitment and retention, services are unlikely to stabilise before 2024. Patients risk being dehumanised as compassion is eroded by pressure. Social prescribing, the use of non-clinical interventions, is accelerating, but link workers and voluntary agencies are overstretched. The future looks bleaker when inequality is taken into account. Poverty, deprivation, unemployment, poor housing and exclusion are major risk factors for mental-health problems, and the cost-of-living crisis will make things worse. In these circumstances, the case for using every community asset for mental wellness is compelling. Burgh Castle Almanac Summer Solstice walk at Burgh Castle Roman Fort in June 2022. Part of the Water Mills and Marshes project led by the Broads Authority (NHLF funded), Burgh Castle Almanac is now a community group set up by members, contributing to the heritage linkworker pilot in Great Yarmouth and Waveney, funded by Historic England. (Photo: Emily Cannell) Inset: These walks are advertised to local people using social prescribing and NHS mental-health services. (Photo: Robert Fairclough) The flyer is distributed by the foundation’s expert advisors and social prescribing colleagues, and through libraries, community hubs and GP surgeries. (Photos: Emily Cannell/Robert Fairclough) 1 Rubinstein, Diary (2021) Conservation forWellbeing Project Research Report, RestorationTrust
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