Lottery paves road to recovery for young people with disabilities

Area:

countries outside the UK
England

Programme:

Young People's Fund Grants to Organisations

Release date:

17 1 2007

Working to benefit the well being and quality of life of those suffering from mental illness, Rethink will today receive £1,259,094 to fund a new project to support young people who have, or are caring for someone with a mental health condition. The Recovery Learning Project, which aims to reach young people aged between 14 and 25, will lead with YoungMinds - a 6-week after school programme for young people aged between 14 and 18. The programme, which will help young people build confidence and new skills, will cover issues around the prevention of mental illness and early intervention.

The second strand, Rethink, will deliver a intensive programme of activities to build self-esteem and peer support for people aged between 19 and 25 who have experienced a first episode of psychosis or are carers. The programme will also target young offenders with mental health problems and, in particular, those with experience of living in care, and young people from BME communities.

Paul Jenkins, Chief Executive of Rethink, said: "Rethink is delighted to be part of such a ground-breaking and innovative project. This Big Lottery grant will enable Rethink to transform the lives of so many young people affected by severe mental illness. Thanks to this funding, young people and their families will be able to get help and information that can give them hope for a brighter future."

A three-year project to equip and enable young deaf people across the regions with new skills, has been awarded £669,623. The Full Potential project, launched by The Royal Association for Deaf People, has been designed to ease the transition into adulthood for young deaf people and help them gain access to the same opportunities as their hearing peers. The scheme will offer residential courses, which aim to boost confidence through activities such as abseiling, canoeing, caving and archery, along with workshops on finance, employment skills' and positive role models.  

Graham Olive, Head of Management Support Services, said: “This award gives us a wonderful opportunity to make a difference to the lives of young deaf people across the country. The aim of the project is for deaf organisations to work in partnership with young deaf people in providing them with the essential skills and knowledge that they require for the successful transition into adulthood. The project activities will give them the confidence to stand up for their rights and have access to the same opportunities as their hearing peers.”

Giving young people who suffer from eating disorders a voice in shaping and improving treatment services both locally and nationally, the Eating Disorders Association have been awarded £186,012 for an innovative recovery project. The project, Agents for Change, will provide a range of services to encourage young people to engage in their own recovery process, which will involve an online assessment tool and regular structured support.

The programme will also encourage young people to become Eating Disorders Experts, working with peers as active agents to improve healthcare services, promote effective treatment and engage with healthcare providers. Youngsters will also have the opportunity to draw up an Agents for Change Charter to promote the high standards and core values of the recovery programme.

Emma Healey, Director of Operations, said: “For us, the highlight has not just been receiving funding from the Big Lottery, though that is fantastic.  It is the opportunity to work really closely with a group of young people who have shown us how we can create a project, which will really improve the lives of young people affected by eating disorders.  Young people have told us that they want a role in improving healthcare services and challenging the stigma that surrounds eating disorders: our new project, funded by the Big Lottery, gives us the chance to do just that.  And we have a committed group of young people working with us to make sure that we get it right.”

Sir Clive Booth, Chair of the Big Lottery Fund, said: “I am confident that today’s funding of nationally significant projects will make a huge difference to the lives of young people in England; we want these projects to help create a positive change to the public image of young people, and allow issues faced by young people to be more widely understood by the general public.

“Since its launch in 2004, the Young People’s Fund has put young people at the heart of projects  - they have come up with their own ideas and have been involved from start to finish. The groups that were awarded funding today do just that: they support the aspirations of young people, preparing them for their future and the challenges of life that lie ahead.”

Further Information

Big Lottery Fund Press Office: 020 7211 1888
Out of hours contact: 07867 500 572
Public Enquiries Line: 08454 102030
Textphone:  845 6021 659
Full details of the Big Lottery Fund programmes and grant awards are available on the website: www.biglotteryfund.org.uk

Notes to Editors

1. The Young People’s Fund in England was launched in September 2004. Funding from the Young People’s Fund open grants programme in England can be accessed through three specific strands: £10 million for applications from individuals, £40 million in grants to voluntary organisations/ partnerships, £27.6 million will go to national organisations for large projects.
2. The Big Lottery Fund's Board has agreed to allocate a further £100m to the extension of the Young People's Fund programme in England. The money will be allocated in 2006 following a paper to the Big Lottery Fund’s Board that develops the possible options for the extension. These options will be developed to reflect the learning from our current programmes and to compliment the messages of the DfES Youth Green Paper that is to be published soon.
3. The Young People’s Fund aims to put young people at the centre of creating, planning and delivering projects to achieve the following:
   • Being healthy: enjoying good physical and mental health and living a healthy lifestyle
   • Staying safe: being protected from harm and neglect and growing up able to look after   themselves
   • Enjoying and achieving getting the most out of life and developing the skills for adulthood
   • Making a positive contribution: to the community and society and not offending or behaving anti-socially
   • Economic wellbeing: overcoming disadvantages to achieve their full potential in life.
4. The success criteria for this programme include young people’s involvement at every stage of the project from start to finish and the project delivering on at least, two of the five Young People’s Fund programme aims. To be considered applicants will need to demonstrate how they intend to achieve both of these objectives.
5. Big Lottery Fund is the joint operating name of the New Opportunities Fund and the National Lottery Charities Board (which made grants under the name of the Community Fund). The Big Lottery Fund, launched on 1 June 2004, is distributing half of all National Lottery good cause funding across the UK.
6. The Big Lottery Fund is building on the experience and best practice of the merged bodies to simplify funding in those areas where they overlap and to ensure Lottery funding provides the best possible value for money. To date, the two merged Funds have committed more than £6 billion to initiatives with national, regional and local partners from the public, voluntary, charity and private sectors, with a particular focus on disadvantage.
7. The Grants to Organisations strand of the Young People’s Fund programme in England closed for applications on 14 July 2006. The last awards from the Grants to Organisations strand will be made in January 2007.

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