We want to ensure funding reaches communities where inequalities and other social and economic factors are likely to reduce community resilience and increase mental health challenges.

Jenny Knight, Senior Communications Officer at Mind

Co-op’s Community Wellbeing Index (CWI) has been an instrumental tool in the application and assessment phase for our community resilience and mental wellbeing services.

We want to ensure funding reaches communities where inequalities and other social and economic factors are likely to reduce community resilience and increase mental health challenges.

About Co-op’s partnership with Mind, SAMH (Scottish Association for Mental Health) and Inspire

1 in 4 of us will experience a mental health problem in any given year. This is around 14 million people in the UK – someone in every family, workplace and friendship group.

That’s why Co-op is working with Mind, SAMH and Inspire. We’re aiming to raise £8 million to bring communities together to improve mental wellbeing.

As part of our partnership, we’re funding around 40 new community-based services that will support a minimum of 10,000 people to improve their resilience and mental wellbeing.

Using the Community Wellbeing Index (CWI) to assess grants applications

In England and Wales, Mind’s partnership services are funded through a grant system, with Co-op grants open to applications from across Mind’s network of 117 local Minds. Each local Mind understands the needs of their community and they tailor their services to match.

Using the CWI helped us to identify areas where new services were needed and enabled us to do some targeted promotion. As a result, we successfully engaged local Minds in those areas to apply for funding. Once applications were in, they were assessed by an independent panel which included representatives from the Co-op, local Minds, and people with lived experience of mental health problems. 

We assessed the grants against pre-agreed criteria and used the CWI to ensure that the services were located in areas with high levels of mental health need.

Launch of the services

Thanks to Co-op colleagues, customers and members, £6m has been raised so far.  Because of our partnership, a number of services are already up and running with more to rollout later this year.  Some of the services across the UK are:

• No Gimmicks, Straight Lyrics, which supports young black men in Lambeth to develop coping strategies through lyric writing.
• The Hive, a service which supports young people to build resilience through creative activity and peer support in Tameside.
• Rainbow Mind, who are teaching self-care and mindfulness skills to address the mental health needs of LGBT young people.

You can find out more about the partnership, the services and support that is available for both yourself and others here.

By Jenny Knight, Senior Communications Officer at Mind

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