Me & Money

In response to the rise of money anxiety amongst young people and the growing body of research on the repercussions on wellbeing and mental health, we co-produced a pilot programme launched in November 2023. Me & Money seeks to reduce young people’s anxieties around money by increasing their understanding of the interconnections between money and mental health.

Me & Money programme

Fully co-produced with young people, the Me & Money programme went through a six-month pilot and comprehensive evaluation, resulting in the development of two empowering workshops that can be delivered consecutively or separately.

The first explores the complex connections between money and mental health, while the second looks at our relationship with money. Both workshops provide a comprehensive toolkit for young people to take away and revisit.

Me & Money explores the complex interplay between values, beliefs, attitudes, thoughts, and behaviours in relation to money. We created an innovative behavioural model, ‘Money and Mental Health Wheel’ used within our interactive toolkit to empower young people to understand the complex relationship.

The programme’s three main objectives are to:

Provide young people with an understanding of the interconnection between money and mental health.
Empower young people by supporting them to understand how our attitudes towards money can influence our thoughts and behaviours.
Equip young people with a suite of resilience-building skills and tools related to money which they can use to support themselves, now and in the future.

Me & Money impact

Extensive evaluation conducted after the pilot measuring the impact and effectiveness of the programme confirmed that young people understood more about the relationship between money and mental health and felt equipped and empowered for the future.

86% of young people

had a better understanding of how attitude towards money can influence thoughts and behaviour.

83% of young people

had a better understanding about the connection between money and mental health.

74% of young people

had a better understanding of tools and techniques they could use to manage their feelings and emotions around money.

1,539 young people now have the knowledge, tools and confidence to better understand their relationship with money.

49 organisations across the UK have received the Me & Money programme.

Meet the Me & Money Coordinator

David Senga Lubendo

“I have over a decade of experience working with young people across different settings including schools, youth organisations, and a young offender institution. I have been fortunate to lead on initiatives ranging from mentoring programmes, workshops for young people with additional needs to training programmes for young people not in education, employment or training, and mental ill-health has been the underlying thread across all the projects I have been a part of.

Me & Money is such a unique programme and I look forward to seeing how the programme develops and reaches more young people in the UK, especially young people from diverse and underserved communities.”

Email David

Testimonials

Not a lot of people talk about how mental health can be affected by money. (It is important) because it's very relatable for everyone .., people will stress over it at one point or another in their life, and sometimes it might affect your mental health a lot.

Young person attending Me & Money workshop

We're getting to the age where we're getting more responsibility ... we get more freedom to do what we want and obviously money will correlate to that, so now is a good time to address it (the relationship between money and mental health).

Young person attending Me & Money workshop

Me & Money

Me & Money programme