Addiction is a serious mental health condition – and should be treated as such in the workplace

As a social justice charity, the Prime Minister’s recent announcement to overhaul the benefits system and tackle Britain’s “sick note culture” was unsettling reading for The Forward Trust. We were not alone, as many other charities working to support vulnerable and marginalised individuals found this sentiment to be lacking the compassion and acknowledgment of the true levels of hardship that many of our clients face.

Fundamentally, the comments also ignored the evidence of soaring mental health and addiction in society and lurched towards stereotypes that do little to help people on a journey to recovery and getting back to work.

Forward’s national addiction awareness and action campaign, Taking Action on Addiction, launched in 2021 based around the explicit directive that addiction is a serious mental health condition – and should be treated as such.

Mental Health Awareness Week gave a new impetus for Forward and our campaign to push our core message – addiction is not a choice and can happen to anyone. The concept of choice in addiction and mental ill health continues to resonate in the stigma and misunderstanding people experience.

Often sensationalist and unfounded, the characterisation of people as lazy, risky, or unworthy perpetuates a cycle of self-harm and self-hate that people struggle to escape from. In the longterm, it also contributes towards a cycle of shame that individuals with addiction issues can struggle to overcome. This is why addiction often remains in the shadows of mental health discourse and why many people who are worried about their alcohol intake or drug use remain stuck in these dangerous cycles for so long before (ever) getting the help and support they desperately deserve.

Alongside mental health problems, there are many other notable reasons why people are out of work at any given time; insecure work, zero-hour contracts, a lack of job flexibility, lack of support/reasonable adjustments, and low pay. This intertwining of mental health and circumstantial issues associated to the working environment can inevitably lead to a person being ‘stuck’ in a cycle of dependency on Universal Credit.

We already know that the Covid-19 pandemic took a particular toll on the low-paid and those in less secure work. According to the Institute for Employment Studies (IES), “low-paid employees were also more than twice as likely to leave their jobs – with around one in twenty doing so each quarter compared with just one in fifty of those not in low pay.”

Negative labelling of people diagnosed with mental health conditions – such as derogative terms like ‘lazy’ – legitimises a view that it’s the person who is ill or sick that needs to change. This helps no one. It sets people and employers up for failure and wastes the untapped potential of people who, with the right system and access to support, can thrive at work. The start of a journey to recover from addiction can be difficult and may include a need for time away in a medicalised and therapeutic setting.

Our message to all politicians is to be mindful of your impact – throwaway comments have consequences. Today, there will be thousands of people at work who are struggling with their mental health or an addiction (or usually both). They may be seeking a way to speak to an employer about taking time out to address their dependency. That conversation is hard enough. Sometimes time out is the only way to come back, and that’s ok.

In fact, there is plenty of evidence, to the contrary, that businesses and employers that offer dedicated support have a greater effect on helping people back to work. We need a system that enables people to do just that. If you need that space, we are on your side, we get it. We can help you manage those conversations. Research published by Taking Action on Addiction at the end of 2023 found that nearly half of all UK adults are affected by addiction or dependency – either personally or through someone close to them. Everybody knows somebody (watch our 17-minute film of the same name), and talking to your employer doesn’t have to be as hard as you fear it may be.

At Forward, our Employment Support teams work with a wide range of individuals to help get them back into meaningful, stable employment.  Whilst we support the model to improve access to work, there are periods when – if encountering episodes of serious mental illness – time away from a working environment is required to ensure their safety (and those of the wider workplace).By working with employers to find ways for people to return to work or explore new employment opportunities, we can support people from all walks of life to get the skills, experience or confidence needed to kickstart their careers.We often support people who are long-term unemployed or not in education, employment, or training (NEET) – and we do this well. For example, our Restart Service in Thanet has supported 1,013 people into employment, with at least 30% reporting mental health challenges such as anxiety disorders or high stress levels as contributing factors.

From our experience delivering employability and skills programmes, we see that:

• Further training with impartial and independent Careers, Information, Advice, and Guidance can help individuals access more sustainable employment with real prospects for career enhancement.
• Intensive, frequent, and holistic support from an Advisor, along with in-work support, can lead to better outcomes in the workplace.
• Other progression pathways, such as self-employment, business start-up, and further training through apprenticeships, can be put into place.
• Educating employers about mental health issues, well-being, and addiction can enable them to improve support for their employees, e.g., better line management and providing reasonable adjustments.
• Access to networks such as Forward Connect can enable individuals to access peer support.
• Retaining individuals through commitment to Good Work Standards and the Real Living Wage

Aside from these points, there is so much more we can do to support employers to reconsider assumptions that people with long-term conditions cannot work for them. We need to tackle the employment support gap and help employers better support people with health conditions and disabilities. This includes looking at how they design jobs, recruit, and improve health and other types of support for their employees.

Has this blog resonated with your or maybe someone you know?

The Forward Trust offers a range of services to support individuals in overcoming barriers to employment, such as ClickStart – an innovative digital skills training programme for 18–25-year-olds in London, to our Adult Education Budget (AEB) programme offering tailored educational opportunities to help adults gain new qualifications and skills, enhancing their employability and career prospects.