Counselling, general practitioner, and mental health support services are being purchased by food bank charities in the UK to help staff and volunteers manage the stress and exhaustion caused by the soaring demand for emergency food.

The well-being services respond to increased fatigue and stress among frontline food bank employees due to expanding workloads and the emotional burden of supporting an increasing number of impoverished and emotionally traumatised clients.

More than 2,000 Trussell Trust food bank staff and volunteers now have access to health and wellbeing support, including assistance with compassion fatigue, mental health first aid, face-to-face consultations with GPs and counsellors, and a Samaritans helpline.

A charity based in England will soon begin paying a private healthcare company to provide a 24/7 helpline and app-based mental health support for its “overwhelmed” employees.

Emma Revie, the chief executive officer of the Trussell Trust, stated, “The £30,000 investment was a response to the “unrelenting” mental and physical effects on its staff, who were under enormous pressure to provide emergency food aid and support to a growing number of individuals affected by rising poverty, benefit cuts, and the cost of living crisis.”

“We felt at the beginning of this year that conditions for staff and volunteers were deteriorating.” We don’t want to professionalise this, but we are responsible for safeguarding our people, so we had to take action. Ultimately, there would be no food bank without our volunteers,” she explained.

The Independent Food Aid Network coordinator, Sabine Goodwin, stated, “As the UK’s poverty crisis worsens, food bank staff and volunteers are under constant pressure to source adequate supplies and assist people in increasingly complex situations.” Overburdened food centre teams are expected to accomplish the impossible.

According to managers, the emotional burden placed on volunteers can be particularly taxing. 

They typically arrive eager to make a difference but can be demoralised by the heartbreaking plight of clients, the relentless tempo of work, and the realisation that the inadequate state benefits system can lock clients into food bank dependence.

Su Parrish, operations director at the Easter Team food bank in Crawley, stated that most volunteers signed up to distribute food parcels and convey some love. 

They did not anticipate the level of stress exhibited by our consumers as a result of their current circumstances.

A volunteer movement that began in earnest in the UK just over a decade ago and continues to rely primarily on community groups and churches must adapt to a central and semiformalized social emergency role as austerity cuts to welfare benefits and public services bring the human consequences of poverty directly to their doorstep.

Initially, food banks primarily served unemployed single adults and refugees; however, in recent years, the clientele has expanded to include families and children, households in low-paid and zero-hours work, and senior citizens. 

The increase in energy costs has increased the demand for food donations even further.

Last year, the Trussell Trust’s 1,400 food bank centres distributed 3 million food parcels as demand surpassed pandemic levels. However, due to a decline in food donations, £7.5 million was spent purchasing food for food parcels. Independent food pantries in the UK also reported record demand.

Ewen Roberts, who supervises the food store at Asylum Link Merseyside, stated that the organisation had for the first time arranged access to external counselling and therapists to assist staff: “We are working so hard and so quickly that we do not have time to unfurl and calm down. It’s simply more pressurised than before.”

Staff would experience “vicarious trauma” as a result of working with vulnerable clients, many of whom were themselves extremely stressed and frequently ill: “We are working extended hours. People become exhausted, and they reach a point where they no longer want to do this,” he said.

An Ifan survey of members discovered repeated concerns about volunteer stress. 

Some reported difficulty convincing overburdened volunteers to take time off, while others reported bringing in counselling services to assist coworkers struggling with “unsustainable” pressure.

One respondent stated, “Some of our senior volunteers requested a meeting with me to discuss their deteriorating physical health and mental exhaustion. We decided to reduce our service to a skeleton during the summer to give the volunteers a respite so they can focus on their wellbeing.”

You cannot simply wield a magic wand and make everything better. 

Su Parrish is the operations manager at the Crawley Easter Team food bank.

“Our volunteers frequently hear the tragic tales of their clients.” All of them are distressing. Every day, we speak with people who are despondent and have given up hope that anything will change.

Staff would experience “vicarious trauma” as a result of working with vulnerable clients, many of whom were themselves extremely stressed and frequently ill: “We are working extended hours. People become exhausted, and they reach a point where they no longer want to do this,” he said.

An Ifan survey of members seen by the Guardian discovered repeated concerns about volunteer stress. Some reported difficulty convincing overburdened volunteers to take time off, while others reported bringing in counselling services to assist coworkers struggling with “unsustainable” pressure.

One respondent stated, “Some of our senior volunteers requested a meeting with me to discuss their deteriorating physical health and mental exhaustion. We decided to reduce our service to a skeleton during the summer to give the volunteers a respite so they can focus on their wellbeing.”

“Our volunteers frequently hear the tragic tales of their clients.” All of them are distressing. Every day, we speak with people who are despondent and have given up hope that anything will change.