Supporting Performer Mental Wellbeing

Aim

A project to recruit and train a team of performers to run online peer groups to support fellow performers with maintaining a healthy mind.

Supporting Artist Mental Wellbeing (Samwell) CIC is a not-for-profit community interest company founded in 2021.

Our mission at Samwell is to help performers maintain a healthy mind throughout their careers. 

This requires understanding and anticipating issues and problems before they occur, not only finding solutions when they do. 

In other words…instead of parking more ambulances at the bottom of the cliff waiting for people to fall, we are focused on building fences at the top.

COVID-19 has had a devastating impact on the industry, and for those that rely on it for income. However a career in the Performance Arts has ALWAYS been competitive, stressful and very challenging, one where there is a higher prevalence of mental health problems than in other walks of life. 

At Samwell, we are working on a model for maintaining a healthy mind, offering a balance of practical guidance, emotional support, access to inspirational content and relevant human connections, whether experts or other performers with shared experiences. 

We want Samwell to help normalise the habit of maintaining a healthy mind in the same way that brushing our teeth to stop tooth decay is normal. This requires a design and execution that is fully inclusive, appealing to those that may not identify as having issues with their mental health, or may be reluctant to share through fear of judgement, as much as those that do. 

The Problem

Human Connection is an important building block within our model for maintaining a healthy mind.

In a competitive and insecure industry, where most people work within a freelance (solo) capacity, rates of loneliness are often high. Not only does the industry need safe spaces for performers to connect and grow together, there is also an enormous untapped wealth of lived experience that is waiting to be shared and utilised as practical guidance and emotional support for others.

With your help, we want to raise money to begin harnessing the power of peer-to-peer support and learning to help all performers at every stage of their careers.

The Project

Samwell will recruit and train 32* performers to be Peer Support Advocates.  Each Advocate will have lived experience, a passion for a particular subject that will form the basis of their peer group, and a desire to support their peers.

Each Advocate will receive the following:

• Mental Health First Aid Training
• Training on how to run a peer group
• A community badge identifying them as a Peer Support Advocate
• Access to functionality to create and manage a Samwell Peer Group
• Access to a support group for Peer Support Advocates

Performance artists will then be invited to join groups. Samwell anticipates that the peer groups will initially attract 300+ participants.

In addition to recruiting, training and supporting the Peer Support Advocates run their groups, the funds raised will also pay for expert support to design a methodology to monitor and record what impact (positive or negative) taking part in peer-led learning and support had for each participant.

The aim is to run the project for six months with a final report created to share outcomes and recommendations.

* The target is to recruit 32 Advocates but this will depend on how much money Samwell raises.

Who We Are

As a performer and writer, Helen Jeffery is acutely aware of the pressures the 

This project successfully funded on 15th April 2022