Grants

Grants Programme Guidelines

Improving Londoners' Mental Health

Aims of the Programme
Improving the mental health of Londoners is an important investment in London’s well-being and its future. Around one in five Londoners lives with a mental illness and people with mental health problems remain amongst the most marginalised groups in the UK.

Mental ill health is more prevalent in London than in the rest of the UK. The capital has the highest rates of compulsory psychiatric admission and the mental health needs of Londoners are complex. The prevalence of people with a dual diagnosis (mental health and drug or alcohol problems) and London’s large concentration of people in contact with the Criminal Justice System who have serious mental health problems points to the need for a range of specialist services and approaches to reach the marginalised communities with the highest rates of mental illness.

The mental health needs of children and young people are often over-looked until crisis point. Suicide amongst young men is one of the highest causes of early death. We know too that isolation amongst older people often leads to depression which is often mis-diagnosed or under-reported. The mental health needs of Londoners are varied and we want to support work which covers a wide range of issues which affect someone’s ability to get on with their daily life. Services must demonstrate that they are culturally sensitive and that they can meet the needs of marginalised groups or communities.

What will we fund?

• Work tackling depression amongst older people.
• Services specifically for children and young people and their families and carers.
• Work supporting homeless people, transient people and rough sleepers.
• Work with prisoners, ex-prisoners and others in contact with the Criminal Justice System.
• Work particularly around “trauma” amongst refugee and asylum seekers.
• Resettlement support for people with mental health issues living independently or in supported accommodation.

Please specify on your application form which of these themes your project is addressing.

Making a Difference
We want to fund projects that really make a difference to people’s lives. We would like to know how our funding has helped achieve positive changes or “outcomes”. We want you to tell us how your work will contribute to our overall programme outcomes. You will need to demonstrate that your project can contribute to at least one of these and that you have systems in place to collect information on numbers of people who have benefited and how you will measure the changes your work will bring about.

Our Programme Outcomes
We want to fund projects that will achieve one or more of the following:

• fewer older people with depression and more people reporting improvements in well-being
• more children and young people receiving specialist help resulting in improved mental health
• more homeless and transient people and rough sleepers in touch with mental health services and reporting improvements in well-being
• more offenders receiving help and support with improved mental health. Reduced numbers of prisoners with mental health problems inappropriately imprisoned
• more refugees and asylum seekers accessing mental health services resulting in improved mental health
• more people with mental health problems successfully managing to live independently or in supported accommodation.

If your application is successful, we will ask you to report regularly on your progress in reaching these outcomes although we recognise that some of these will be long-term. In addition, we will be interested to hear about other outcomes that you may have achieved as well as any unexpected issues that have added to your learning.

Please contact us if you are unclear on what an ‘outcome’ means in your area of work.

Good Practice
Please show how you:

• involve service users the planning of the service if appropriate
• welcome people of all backgrounds and value diversity
• value and support volunteers
• are taking steps as an organisation to reduce your carbon footprint.