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Project Name: |
Northern Mental Health & Wellbeing Initiative |
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Zone: |
Northern |
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Category: |
Revenue |
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Social Investment Fund Outcome: |
Reducing Deprivation |
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Status: |
Delivery - Complete |
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Funding awarded: |
£888,733 |
About the Project
The Northern Area Mental Health Initiative sought to address mental health and wellbeing challenges by building capacity across communities in the SIF Northern Zone. It delivered free mental health awareness, support, early intervention, resilience training and signposting to mental health and wellbeing support services for young people aged from 8 to 25 in schools, youth clubs and through key contacts. The initiative targeted children and young people living in the Coleraine, Newtownabbey, Carrickfergus, Ballymena, Antrim and Larne areas.
A range of outreach (in school and community) support approaches (including mental health awareness/resilience training, bespoke resilience workshops, sexual abuse/exploitation education and digital communications) aimed to prevent poor mental health and wellbeing and develop the resilience and capacity to deal with common challenges to young people’s mental health and wellbeing.
A digital hub centred on mental health education, support and information, www.northernareamhi.org.uk, was created to complement and reinforce the learning provided through the free awareness raising workshops. The hub offers age appropriate platforms through a bespoke website and provides an important gateway for mental health and support. A wide range of local and national information on services across Northern Ireland is available with a particular focus for those living in the Northern zone.
A short film was also created and developed by students from Carrickfergus Primary School which introduced the concept of the “5 Ways to Well-being”. This is available to view on the project’s website https://www.amh.org.uk/ and on YouTube.
These digital and electronic resources proved essential in the way forward in attracting young people and relating to them in a way they understand and recognise.
Key outcomes of the initiative included: over 19,629 beneficiaries with 99% completing training, 88.46% were helped by the initiative and 88.36% had an increased awareness of health and wellbeing demonstrating improved mental health and wellbeing of people that benefitted from the project initiatives delivered.
Progress to date
This project has completed delivery. The project has exceeded its targets and has been very effective in increasing awareness, creating valuable pathways and providing signposting to other services. It has had a positive impact on the young people, their key contacts and the wider community in the SIF Northern zone. Utilisation of technology, interactive workshops and online web resources in the development and delivery of the innovative solutions for the promotion of mental health and wellbeing has proven very successful. The production of the short film and website are lasting legacies of the initiative and of SIF providing vital ongoing resources for young people.
Impacts
Monitoring and evaluation of all Social Investment Fund projects is carried out using “Outcomes Based Accountability” (OBA). The infographic below details some of the key impacts of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Initiative.
