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Women’s Mental Health Peer Support Programme: enabling provision for women

29 Aug 2018 - 14:35 by michelle.foster

Mind, the leading mental health charity in England and Wales, and Agenda, the alliance for women and girls at risk, are delighted to announce the launch of their £1.3m women’s mental health peer support grants programme. Mind

The programme responds to the needs of women experiencing disadvantage, particularly multiple disadvantage, who are frequently under-represented in services. It builds on their experience of peer support approaches that they have seen reach women within their communities and that women value.

Peer support differs from other forms of mental health service and support in important ways. It happens when people who have similar experiences of something difficult come together to support each other. It is through this development of meaningful, two-way relationships that peer support works. Crucially, the people involved play an active role in creating a safe environment for each other.

Covering England and Wales, the programme aims to fund:
• Organisations to facilitate peer support initiatives delivered for and by women experiencing multiple disadvantage. Multiple disadvantage is defined as women who experience several issues such as mental health problems, homelessness, drug and alcohol misuse, abuse and violence, offending, and family breakdown. They may have one main need complicated by other factors (eg race, sexuality, age or disability) or lower level issues which together combine to constitute multiple disadvantage.
• 'Women's Peer Support Hubs' - women's organisations working to improve the capacity of individuals and community based organisations to lead effective peer support activity delivered for and by women.

About the Fund
This programme will seek to fund and enable community-based peer support that reaches around 4,500 women. Work will be funded for a maximum of one year, and Mind expect to make between 80 and 90 awards through the following strands of funding:

Women's Peer Support Hubs
Five capacity building ‘Hub’ grants of up to £50,000; four in England and one in Wales.

These grants will go to women’s organisations with specialist expertise of women with, or at risk of developing, mental health problems and experiencing multiple disadvantage, and who have the connections with community-based organisation to:
• convene and deliver, in partnership with Mind, four capacity building workshops to grow local expertise in delivering women’s mental health peer support
• establish and support local networks of practice
• become centres of expertise and knowledge on women’s peer support
• promote the value of women's peer support
• facilitate peer support directly or indirectly

Peer Support delivery
Around 30 grants of up to £25,000, and around 50 grants of up to £10,000 to facilitate peer support with women experiencing, or at risk of developing, mental health problems and experiencing disadvantage, particularly multiple disadvantage.

During the lifetime of the Fund, those receiving these grants will have the opportunity to take part in a series of learning events. These will be co-convened by the ‘Hubs’ and Mind and will support organisations to build and share knowledge about delivering peer support that works for women.

Grantees will also be part of an evaluation aimed at learning about what works for women, and will be supported by our evaluation partners and peer researchers to build evaluation skills to do this.

Deadline for applications: 15 October 2018

Mind are running an information session to find out more on: Monday 17 September, 10.30am-12.30pm at The Studio, 51 Lever Street, Manchester, M1 1FN

For further information and to apply, visit: www.mind.org.uk/workplace/influence-and-participation-toolkit/women-s-mental-health-peer-support-programme/

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