General Information On Time Banking

Background 

Time Banking is part of a national movement supported by Time Banking UK the leading national umbrella charity that links and supports time banks across the country. Time banks link people locally to share their time and skills. Where everyone's time is equal: one hour of your time earns you one time credit to spend when and how you need.

Time banking in the UK has witnessed spectacular growth since it first started in 1998. The latest statistics for time banks in the UK show that there are:

• 122 active time banks
• 95 developing time banks
• 3 neighborhood time banks
• 66 completed time banks
• 8710 participants actively involved in time banking
• 672639 hours traded between participants to date

Time Banking can give people whose lives have been affected by mental health problems by:

• Helping others whom they already know, and gaining confidence in their abilities and self esteem
• Being thanked and rewarded for putting in their time helping others
• Getting practical help or support they might not be able to afford
• Becoming part of an expanding circle of people who feel free to ask each other for help when they need it and who readily shares their skills with others,
• Being recognised and rewarded for time spent participating in collective activities to help improve services or run user-led projects.
• Creating collaborative partnerships with others in the wider community and reintegration. 

The over-arching aim is to create a time bank spreading well beyond the limited community of mental health service users by building the bank through links with local community groups as well as through RB Mind’s own drop-ins, so that in several different localities in Richmond, local networks of time bank members continue to grow and flourish. Help given and received in a wider, open community would help break down the invisible barriers cutting mental health service users off from the wider community.

We envisage this happening in Richmond, and would try initially to focus on the formation of local networks within the geographical areas covered by current RB Mind services. 

What time banking is – and isn’t

At the heart of time banking are five core values:

1. People are assets. The real wealth of any society is its people. Every individual has valuable experience, skills and connections to contribute to the well-being of others in their local community.
2. Redefining work. Activities such as caring for people, keeping communities safe, clean and green, fighting injustice and making democracy work should be recognised and rewarded as real work.
3. Working together. We need each other. Giving and receiving are the basic building blocks of positive social relationships, making for healthy individuals and healthy communities.
4. Improving our communities. Belonging to a mutually supportive and secure social network brings more meaning to our lives and new opportunities to rebuild our trust in one another.
5. Empowerment. The voices of those being helped must be respected, amplified, responded to and acted upon.

Time banking does not place any financial value on the skills offered or received. Its currency is simply time spent. Everyone has something to contribute.

The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions ruled in 2007 that, for time banking, “time spent on these schemes is not voluntary work.” We will therefore ensure that time bank members are not recruited as or referred to as volunteers, so not to put at risk anyone who receives benefit. It will be important that targets and outcomes are set in terms of ‘participants’ or ‘members’ and ‘time bank hours’, not in terms of volunteering.

RB Mind Uses time banking flexibly in response to the requirements of the local people of Richmond.

Time banking works through these ways:

• People identify the skills and experience which they can offer and those that they need, using a skills and needs questionnaire.
• Everyone’s contribution is welcomed and everyone’s skills are valued equally – one hour always equals one time credit regardless of the type of transaction.
• Everyone agrees both to give and to receive help, to earn and to spend their time credits.
• Everyone is encouraged to spend their time credits to provide others with the chance to make a difference and feel needed.
• A record is kept of all the time credits earned and spent, using the Time Online system.
• Members receive a regular statement showing the time balance on their account.

If you would like to take part in RB Mind's Time Bank please fill out a form online here.