MTQ48 Social & Health

As Mental Toughness become better understood as a personality trait which applies where personality is a factor in behaviour and performance, so the range of applications widens.


 


Social Applications


Applications range from working with people who live in or work in areas of social and/or economic deprivation through to developing skills valuable to society in general such as caring and parenting skills.



Deprivation often provides an environment where wellbeing, aspirations and positive behaviour can be adversely affected. The mental toughness model provides an opportunity for workers in these areas to understand better how their clients are responding to the environment and to direct their interventions more appropriately and more effectively.


 


Specific applications include:



  • Worklessness – building aspiration and confidence where there is little tradition of any work ethic.

  • Aspiration – working with people of all ages to believe that they can achieve. This is particularly important in education where lack of aspiration can prevent individuals from going onto FE and HE.

  • Offenders & Young Offenders – The evidence shows a link with offending and mental sensitivity (the opposite of mental toughness). Applications include early intervention with young offenders through to working with prisoners prior to release to reduce the risk of re-offending.

  • Employability (particularly long term unemployed and NEETS) – developing the confidence, commitment and sense of control to find a way back into the job market.

  • Restorative Practice – working with perpetrators of crime and their victims to deal with the impact of the crime and emerge stronger.

 


Wider social applications include:



  • Parenting skills – developing the behaviours and mind-set to understand the family and to be more effective in developing those in their care

  • Carers – a widely under-recognised group. Carers  carry a great deal of responsibility often with little real support. The carers role is high in stressors, challenge and pressure.

  • Community Cohesion – enabling members of communities to participate more effectively in community activities and to enable building community cohesion. Include supporting individuals to become involved in representative activity in communities .


Health Applications


 


An emerging area of application. There are two main strands:



  • Mental Health and Addiction - On-going research is examining the relationship between mental toughness and mental health conditions such as ADHD and eating disorders. Addiction is also an area where mental toughness can bring fresh insight and much more effective interventions. Pilots are underway to examine the relationship between an individual’s mental toughness and their capability to give up smoking.

  • General Health – Diet and Fitness On-going work suggest that, statistically, the greater the level of mental toughness the more likely an individual is to maintain fitness and good fitness regimes and will eat carefully and better. Wither or both will correlate with factors like (avoidance of) obesity.