Communities Mental Health & Wellbeing Fund Consultation
The Minister for Mental Wellbeing and Social Care (Kevin Stewart MSP) announced a £15m fund to support community-based initiatives that promote and develop good mental health and wellbeing and mitigate and protect against the impact of distress and mental ill health within the adult population. A partnership approach will allow us to include a range of views and experiences as we go about developing the eligibility criteria, and the administration and assessment processes.
Key points for partners to be aware of:
A total of £278,832.73 has been made available specifically to support services that are being delivered within and across communities in East Lothian.
The funds will be administered by VCEL (East Lothian’s Third Sector Interface). We are hoping to open the fund during w/c 29th November 2021 (30th November is the final deadline for opening the fund), and all funding must be distributed by VCEL before 31st March 2022.
Detailed criteria for the fund, including the application and evaluation processes are yet to be released by the Scottish Government. It is likely that there will be the capacity to run a tiered system of grants e.g. small grants up to £1000, medium grants of £1000 to £10,000, and larger grants of up to £50,000.
Dependent upon the criteria stated by the Scottish Government, we may take a view that organisations must have an income of less than (for example) £250,000 for the small to medium grants, and (for example) £500,000 for the larger grants. We will spend some more time on this and use our prior experience of grant delivery to determine the level that is set.
The fund is likely to have three overarching themes encompassing Suicide prevention; Social isolation; and Loneliness.
Within each theme, the aim is to focus on prevention and early intervention that addresses the following considerations: Mental health inequalities exacerbated by the pandemic; and the needs of a range of at-risk groups*.
Community, voluntary, and third sector organisations will be able to apply to the fund to build on their own efforts, whether that be through ongoing or new initiatives.
Assessment will be based on judgements of whether the application fits into one or more of the following combinations:
Mental health inequalities exacerbated by the pandemic
Suicide Prevention
Social Isolation
Loneliness
The needs of a range of at-risk groups
*At-risk groups identified by the Scottish Government for the purposes of this fund include women (pacularly young women); people with a long term health condition or disability; those who are from a BAME background; refugees and those with no recourse to public funds; people facing socio-economic disadvantage; people experiencing severe and multiple disadvantage; people with experience of trauma; people who have experienced bereavement or loss; people disadvantaged by geographical location (particularly remote and rural areas); older people; and LGBTI communities.
What we know about the fund at the moment has been set by the Scottish Government. Notwithstanding the expected arrival of further criteria in due course, the criteria are very broad based so we are confident that many community groups/organisations will be able to benefit from them.
Our ask of our local colleagues:
Given the short amount of time we have to prepare for the opening of the fund, and the availability of people to consult with due to pressured diaries, we would value you taking a short amount of time to share your thoughts with us through the following questionnaire. We would like to receive your views by 1700hrs on Tuesday 9th November please, as this will allow us time to build a delivery plan and set up the administration process prior to the fund opening.
The questionnaire can be accessed through the following link; https://forms.office.com/r/Q7pQKhkiVw
