Communities Mental Health & Wellbeing Funding Recipients
Over £280,000 has been distributed to 36 projects in year 2 run by the below organisations. Click on each organisation below to see a summary of the projects funded in year 2.
Appin Community Development Trust - £4940
Programme of health and well-being activity for Appin and partner communities, focussing on the priority groups of the elderly, those struggling with mental illness and social isolation. The programme comprises of two parts, a series of well-being sessions and the provision of a Warm Hub. The themes of the well-being sessions will be chosen following the delivery of taster sessions from January-March 2023. The programme will be shaped by a new Health and Well-being community group.
ARC (Addictions Recovery Cafe) - £10,000
The addictions recovery cafe will provide a safe space, peer 2 peer support for individuals & their families. A lived experienced weekly share, voicing frustrations/problems & providing life coping strategies and installing future hope. A range of activities supporting mental & physical wellbeing. A warm hub, free food, company & social educational/fun activities. A non-judgemental listening ear supplied by lived experienced recoverists, Aimed at early intervention & effective signposting.
Argyll & the Isles Coast & Countryside Trust - £9975
A 10-week outdoor social hub at Blarbuie providing outdoor cooking, sociable crafting, food growing, seasonal conservation activities and eco skills. With a growing community who want to socialise, improve their mental health, reduce isolation, share a meal and volunteer, who are signposted from statutory and third sector services and lived experience groups. They aim to provide more opportunities for more people to participate.
Argyll Couple Counselling - £7340
Ensuring the future resilience and sustainability of the charity as they adapt to new challenges. Including paying qualified & experienced counsellors; a service mobile to improve communication with clients; employing a part-time support worker for holiday and emergency cover for the Manager with a view to succession planning; and Manager's extra 2 hours a week, to aid casework organisation and manage extra counsellors, to increase client capacity.
Argyll Wellbeing Hub - £9298
The project is to develop and enhance the charity through the introduction of a third member of staff. Additional activities to ensure the community has resources to help improve their mental and physical wellbeing while sticking to main aim which is suicide prevention and early intervention. Additional therapies to aid those in need and activities to keep the community included and active for the benefit of wellbeing.
Cowal Elderly Befrienders SCIO - £9615
Volunteer Support Project will help utilise, support and recruit volunteers, further the reach of the elderly befriending project and help meet demand. A dedicated staff member (2 days each week) will recruit, train, monitor, and co-ordinate a team of volunteers to help provide a wide range of social supports for up to 300 socially isolated elderly people each week. They want to increase volunteer diversity, retention, and geographical location.
Crossroads North Argyll - £10,000
Free respite for unpaid carers in Oban, Lorn and the Isles. This enables them to have a much-needed break each week to meet up with friends, go for hair appointments, etc. anything that helps their own mental health and wellbeing which has been affected by their caring role and coping during the pandemic.
Development Coll Ltd - £2000
To offer a warm friendly place at the heart of the community where people can spend time with others, chatting, crafting, exchanging ideas. Where there is someone to listen, to advise, to care and to smile. Free hot drinks daily and soup on demand with someone to talk to. To offer a library, Knitting and Crafting Club, indoor bowling, table tennis, badminton.
Dunoon Burgh Trust - £10,000
Creative Blethers offer people creative respite in an informal and relaxed atmosphere; nurturing positive activities to alleviate social isolation and anxiety and improve local people's mental health and wellbeing. They plan to run regular creative activities on Tuesday afternoons between September and April encompassing arts and crafts sessions with local artists, relaxed film screenings and 'songs and stories' sessions with local musicians and invited guests.
Dunoon Community Shed - £4682
Dunoon Community Shed provides an open, welcoming, and inclusive space for people of all backgrounds and abilities. They want to improve facilities to cater for an increasingly diverse membership including women, disabled people, younger people, families and young adults with learning disabilities. They need to improve toilet and washroom facilities for men, women, disabled and young children. Improvements would include better disabled support, hand driers, water heaters, baby change facilities.
Family Mediation Argyll & Bute - £8620
A clearly defined Adult Service in a space for use by all agencies who require a safe, neutral, comfortable space. This will enable them to operate fully to Trauma informed practise and protect adults from tiggers of their current circumstances protecting their mental health when assisting them through the family breakdown.
Fun First = £3330
Expansion of Fun First Friends (FFF) service from once to twice monthly sessions and some special events. Delivering some sessions on the peninsula (Garelochhead & Rosneath) to reach those who are rurally isolated in addition to the Drumfork Community Centre in Helensburgh and Colgrain Community House. Alongside health practitioners they will invite fitness, nutrition and other local wellbeing/care organisations.
Grey Matters Active Ageing - £10,000
An extension to current physical activity programme including seated Tai Chi lessons.
Helensburgh Community Hub - £3166
Reading Minds is an uplifting weekend event to encourage reading for pleasure as a way to support good mental health, to break down barriers associated with mental health and unpaid caring, and to explore other low cost activities such as mindfullness, breathing and growing food that can help support good mental health through live talks and discussions with authors, sharing food together and interactive discussions around books and reading.
Here We Are - £9460
A service for a mainly elderly community with many unpaid family carers providing 24 hour care. Volunteers will visit to give the unpaid carer a much needed break, giving the carer and the cared for something to look forward to. There will also be volunteers who visit the isolated lonely.
Hope Kitchen SCIO - £10,000
Nourish to Flourish is Hope Kitchen's project for the next 3 years to support the integration and meaningful engagement of people with a learning disability into the programme of activities. All the activities are designed to enable the participants to improve their mental health and are wide and varied to ensure that there is something for everyone.
Inspire Inveraray - £8500
A Community Action Plan for Inveraray identified the need for a Community Shed. This will be a space for people to meet, connect, converse, create, share knowledge, and learn new skills. The aim of the project would be to reduce loneliness, isolation and improve mental health and wellbeing through social connections, friendship, sharing skills and of course a lot of laughter. Activities will range from bird box building, bike repairs, creative writing, bee keeping and socialising.
Interloch Transport - £9516
A project focusing on getting people back out of their homes and integrating again with their communities.
Inveraray Senior Citizens Committee - £1950
A project to allow more bus outings to the senior citizens in the town that they wouldn't otherwise have the opportunity to do as individuals in a safe environment.
Islay & Jura Community Enterprises Limited - £15,222.16
To work with a range of linked organisations to provide advice & support for people experiencing Cost Of Living crisis. Also to provide warm spaces, uniform exchange, 2nd hand shop, community fridge, cooking work shops. To provide a range of sessional activities which increase social contact, emotional & practical support & increase activity levels. Includes Chit Chat Support Hub, Aquacare Therapy, Autumn Years Club. Digital connectivity and tutoring integral to all.
Kintyre Link Club - £10,000
Peer support, to promote friendships and try to provide a supportive environment where members can socialise, relax and learn. A recovery service for people living with conditions across the spectrum of mental illness from bipolar and obsessive-compulsive disorders to depression and many more.
Kintyre Seasports - £3945
The proposed project for 2023 is a development of the Year 1-funded 2022 project and, as with the Year 1 project, aims to identify and lower barriers to participation in seasports and the mental health and wellbeing benefits that it provides. The project is open to all, but its recruitment is targeted at those on the list of at risk groups identified in the Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund.
Lorn & Oban Healthy Options Ltd - £16,720
This project aims to continue to increase access/ reduce the time people wait in order to access Level 4 Exercise Professional support to learn skills, techniques and activities which empower a self-management approach to living with mental health conditions. It focuses on providing a tailored "tool box" which clients can develop and personalise to improve their health and wellbeing.
MacDougall of Dunollie Preservation Trust - £7292
New Routes Health & Wellbeing Group. Pathways Project for Oban High School Students aged 16+. These groups would participate in maintaining and developing Dunollie's Grounds, supported by a Heritage Garden Leader, developing both practical skills (garden maintenance, woodworking and planting), social interaction and promoting wellbeing.
Mind Matters Club Oban - £2040
This will be a group activity in the fresh air and in nature for Ladies over 18 to come together and learn something new and also meet new people. They will work at their own pace and challenge themselves to try new things that may at first seem impossible to them.
Multiple Sclerosis Centre. Mid Argyll - £6000
Bringing high quality bespoke training in participatory photography methodology to Argyll for the team and local partners enabling to develop Photovoice projects locally to empower those who feel unheard to gain a voice through sharing their own images and story. Instead of feeling alone, frustrated and helpless they will feel valued and empowered. Their voice will be better heard by those they feel need to listen - promoting community wellbeing, inclusion, connections and resilience.
New Way - £9552
New Way was granted funding last year which was used to develop Something Else and You're Something Else projects. Something Else delivers peer designed and led bus trips for people experiencing issues with substance misuse, mental health, loneliness and isolation. You're Something Else is aimed at supporting people to develop personalised, goal orientated plans and to work towards making those goals a reality with support from a trained support worker.
North Argyll Carers Centre - £7712
The project will support unpaid carers across the Oban, Lorn and Isles area to access counselling and manual therapies which will help them manage the emotional and physical effects of caring, boost their mental wellbeing and enable them to sustain their caring roles. All therapies will be delivered by trusted and highly qualified local providers who have worked alongside us for a number of years, have lived experience of caring, and understand the challenges unpaid carers face.
Project 81 Youth and Community Enterprise Ltd - £10,000
CENTRED is a collaboration between Centre 81 and an aspiring new charity FACE. Together through partnership they have established a need for more services for the members of the community living with a disability or are caring for someone with a disability. CENTRED aims to deliver a holistic approach to supporting adults with additional needs by utilising gathered experience to offer services that not only support the service user but also the people that support them.
RAMH - Acumen - £10,000
Recovery College Model. Develop peers to offer their lived experience to support others in their recovery by providing a tested training programme including Exploring Recovery, SRN Peer2Peer, Strengths Builder through workshops and community engagement, with face to face and online delivery. Working in partnership with Meeting Room and ARC to develop capacity and empower peer working to support local projects.
Shopper-Aide Ltd - £10,000
Shopper-Aide offers a range of services to the over 60s in South Kintyre. They collect and deliver shopping, collect and deliver laundry, offer housekeeping services and operate a range of social groups. The project will help maintain and expand services, adding a new lunch club and a new group based in west Kintyre, as well as expanding core services
Skipness Village Hall - £3270
Skipness Village Hall provides a much needed space for the communities of Skipness, Claonaig and other rural residents of North East Kintyre to gather and get involved. They wish to develop a health and well being community programme of events to cater for the local community, encourage participation in the community and to reduce the risks associated with social isolation.
Stepping Stones Support Group - £6610
A programme of group activities and exercise sessions including chair yoga sessions and Fit for Life exercise, relaxation and peer support sessions for people with health issues, community transport where needed and equipment for people to practise at home.
Strachur Hub - £10000
Supporting those in need of Mental health interventions by giving access to trained counsellors with experience and who can deal with referrals with 24 hours. Tackling social isolation and loneliness and general health and wellbeing by providing Otago exercise classes, strength and balance to prevent falls, Tai Chi for general wellbeing, singing as a social event and a lunch each week.
Victory Hall - £1936
The provision of a warm space that will encourage people to interact and get people feeling more included and safer, and will help people through the Cost-of-Living Crisis.
The Rockfield Centre - £9612
Growinng Connections is a programme of outreach activity delivered to The Ardhattan Centre and Dunollie Museum by a Wellness Officer. Expansion upon relationships created and activity undertaken in year one to provide a more extensive offering to deal with the issues of social isolation, loneliness, deprivation, and disadvantage resultant from Covid 19 which have further been exasperated by the current economic climate which is having a direct detrimental effect on many.
