Winners announced! Faith and Mental Health Partnership Beacon Project

FaithAction is delighted to be working with mental health charity Mind on its Faith and Mental Health Beacon Project. The project is designed to enable local Minds and faith groups to work together to increase engagement and confidence to support emotional wellbeing in a faith context – using faith and spirituality as assets rather than barriers to accessing excellent care and support.

As part of this work, six local pilot initiatives are being funded to generate best practice and learning that will be shared with our networks and partners. The six winners are:

• South Lakeland Mind and South Lakeland Interfaith Forum
• Lancashire Mind and Churches Together in Lancashire
• Welcome Me as I Am CIC with MIND groups from across the Archdiocese of Westminster
• The Hope Centre and St Helens Mind
• Brighton and Hove Faith in Action (BHFA) and Mind in Brighton and Hove
• Scarborough, Whitby and Ryedale Mind and Littlebeck Methodist Church, SAMS Place Men’s Shed, partnered with CaVCA

Read more about the pilot projects below. FaithAction’s involvement in this project builds on our Friendly Places work to promote faith communities as settings that welcome and support people experiencing mental health issues.

Faith and Mental Health Partnership Beacon Project winners

Spiritual Links

South Lakeland Mind and South Lakeland Interfaith Forum

Spiritual Links aims to engage those in local faith communities who feel isolated and to support them to improve their mental health and increase their resilience. Over 12 months the project partners will work with the South Lakeland Interfaith Forum to design, produce and distribute an information booklet about mental health and faith. They will provide advice and guidance on how to support those experiencing emotional and mental health issues and will also promote opportunities to access peer support and counselling services.

Faith and Mental Health in Lancashire

Lancashire Mind and Churches Together in Lancashire

A partnership steering group consisting of multi-faith and mental health organisations will plan and host two events aiming to connect faith groups with their local Mind and other local mental health services; share existing best practice (e.g. Time to Change and local innovative faith provision e.g. Parish Nursing); and incorporate two training seminars; five ways to wellbeing and mental health awareness. The project will also gather stories of faith and mental health to promote across Lancashire (written and video), and identify opportunities to build capacity to support peer support in faith settings. Event toolkits will be developed to enable faith members to disseminate information to others in their local areas.

There’s No Health Like Mental Health

Welcome Me as I Am CIC with MIND groups from across the Archdiocese of Westminster

The project will organise four events to benefit clergy, parishioners, and especially those who have volunteering roles that support those with mental health conditions through the parish, such as the Society of St Vincent de Paul. Parish priests and those that work in the parish come into contact with mental health issues regularly due to the nature of their work, and parishioners in general may well have family and friends that they would like to be able to support better. Other faith communities will be invited to participate in the events – for example, the Mental Health Lead for the Diocese of London (Church of England) will asked to publicise the events through the network.

Faith to Talk

The Hope Centre and St Helens Mind

Faith to Talk is designed to open conversation, acknowledging the important role of faith leaders in positively affecting people with mental health issues, who may be hard to reach. The project recognises the need for effective awareness training for faith leaders and Mind volunteers in St Helens. Both groups will be invited to a one-day training session on mental health first aid, increasing awareness and confidence to address mental health. This will be followed by a facilitated workshop, providing the opportunity to put into practice the learning and open the conversation between mental health volunteers and faith leaders around the role of faith in supporting mental health. A toolkit will be launched as a result to provide a resource for faith leaders and Mind volunteers to be confident in addressing mental health from a faith context, ensuring barriers are removed and faith is highlighted as part of recovery.

Mental Health Faith Partnership

Brighton and Hove Faith in Action (BHFA) and Mind in Brighton and Hove

The main aim of the project is to conduct a mental health survey of faith groups in Brighton to determine training needs. Training sessions will be delivered by professionals for faith leaders to build confidence in helping those who suffer from poor mental health. Project partners will assess the outcomes of the survey and discuss next steps. Faith groups that complete the training will be added to a “whitelist” of faith groups. This list will be promoted to organisations that seek to refer people who suffer from poor mental health to a local faith group. The main beneficiaries will be faith groups (training), people of faith who suffer from poor mental health (via trained faith groups) and the BHFA and MiBH (partnership).

Changing Mindsets

Scarborough, Whitby and Ryedale Mind (SWRM) and Littlebeck Methodist Church, SAMS Place Men’s Shed, partnered with CaVCA

The main objective of this project is creating a resource and an online knowledge sharing network centred on Scarborough and Whitby districts with a readily accessible library of useful publications and information. Project partners will also promote access to opportunities, share best practice, support idea generation and development and boost organisational and community resilience.