Target reached!
Thanks for your support so far - we've reached our original target thanks to your ge...
HEart Matters: Peer supported arts & mental health
Eastbourne, England, United Kingdom
Aim
To tackle isolation among older people and develop skills of younger people in an intergenerational online arts project for mental health.
Our HEArt Matters Project is an online intergenerational arts project, working across East Sussex. We want to bring together older people (60+) with mental health challenges living in some of the most economically deprived areas, with young (18-25) volunteers living with mental health challenges who need work experience and the opportunity to develop employability skills in a highly supported, structured environment.
We will integrate 1-2-1 and group mental health peer support as part of the project. We will create an online group exhibition. In future we hope to bring people together in person when it is permitted and safe.
Our vision is to use peer support to build a supportive, intergenerational network of people with mental health challenges who share experiences, build connection, learn new IT and creative skills, and find new meaning and purpose in life, with creative arts at the heart of their ongoing recovery.
Our Project Team
Our team of Peer Support Specialists includes our Project Co-ordinator, Ant, a Peer Support Specialist and artist living with mental health challenges, Sarah and Chenille, Older People’s Peer Support Specialists, our young volunteer, Lily and our artist teachers, many of whom have lived experience themselves.
How we will use the money
Every penny donated to our appeal will be used to recruit, train and support young people aged 18-25 living with mental health challenges to take up structured volunteer placements as IT champions, supporting older people to develop their online skills. Young people will receive training in key employability skills, have structured 1-2-1 support and supervision, and develop a CV and design their own pathway to further training, education and employment. They will be supported to manage their own mental well being and to participate in the online arts courses as beneficiaries as well as volunteers.
East Sussex Community Wellbeing Fund has provided £1,500 of match funding
Aviva Community Fund has provided £315 of match funding
This project successfully funded on 23rd March 2021