2011/2012 Grant awards

£4,000 was awarded to Action on Depression, East Ayrshire.

Project Name: Supporting people to take action on depression in East Ayrshire
To deliver a 6-week open access CBT-based life skills community course for adults experiencing middle to moderate depression in the Cumnock area of East Ayrshire.

Train community Support Volunteers to develop their own skills and confidence and support others in practical and positive ways.

To have an active participation at a minimum of 3-4 local events promoting local service options and campaign activities.

£2,800 was awarded to T.A.G. (Therapeutic Arts Group).

Project Name: TAG Book Project
To create a book containing artworks and creative writing.

All the art work in the book will be by group members using a range of art forms and will be developed to communicate something about mental ill-health and those who experience it, raising awareness and challenging stigma and prejudice.

£3,994 was awarded to Dumfries and Galloway Council.

Project Name: Breaking Down the Barriers of Mental Health.
The project will be developed with young people from the Nithsdale area to produce an audio/video which helps to change young people's understanding, attitudes and behaviour to mental ill-health as well as challenging the discrimination and stigma associated with it.

Young people will work with service users that receive support from the Mental Health Association (MHA) and with suitable staff support to undertake the project. Both the young people and the MHA service users involved with the project have lived experience of mental health problems.

£3,500 was awarded to Channel Fife TV.

Project Name: Harbour Steps
A five part web TV series, created, filmed and edited by people with mental health issues. The series will be innovative and entertaining and shot like a contemporary soap opera. Training will be provided through workshops including script development with film industry professionals. This will be followed by a production phase and a post production phase with a premiere at the Regent Cinema Leven and broadcast on Channel Fife TV and across the world wide web.

£4,000 was awarded to Falkirk and District Association for Mental Health (FDAMH)

Project Name: Arts and Media Group
To produce a DVD and a drama production.

The DVD will incorporate drama, art, photography, creative writing and music.

The DVD and drama will highlight personal recovery stories with creative expression; the aim is to increase peoples' understanding and awareness of stigma and discrimination and personal journeys of recovery; It will also promote recovery and 'see me' campaign messages to a wide and diverse audience.

This DVD will further enhance the promotional work done by our service users to schools, community groups, NHS Forth Valley Psychiatric patients and others to educate them on mental health problems and associated stigma.

£1,330 was awarded to Aberdeen University Students' Association.

Project Name: Breaking the Silence
To hold a Carnival week, breaking the silence of students not talking about their feelings. The first event will be a fun-fayre bringing together organisations who support people with poor mental health, there would also be 'funfair' themed stalls to encourage students to interact with the campaign and educate them of some of the facts surrounding mental health.

The week will also put on more specific workshops for students with poor mental health or self esteem issues.

The final event will be a carnival parade involving members from the local community and bringing them together to challenge the stigma associated with mental health.

£3,000 was awarded to Sunny Govan Community Media Group.

Project Name – 'see me' Let's stop the Stigma of Mental Ill health – Radio Series (the title of the radio series to be created by participants)
The project will involve up to 20 people who experience or have experienced issues around mental ill-health.

The first stage of the project will be to facilitate a training/group work session to create awareness around the Equalities Act 2010. This initial session will highlight this one single act, simplifying the law and strengthening it in important ways to tackle discrimination and inequality. The first stage will also involve supporting the participants to gain access to and interview policy makers, people and groups of influence to discuss issues regarding discrimination and equality and their approach to positive action in the field of mental health.

The next stages of the project aim to create a series of radio programmes creating awareness raising programmes involving people and agencies throughout Glasgow who have experienced mental health issues or working within Mental Health support, giving them a platform to create positive dialogue with the community / listeners of their experiences and raise awareness of the issues surrounding mental health and the services available.

Service users and service providers will create a series of 4x 1 hour radio programmes, that will be broadcast to a Glasgow wide audience on 103.5 FM and all across the world online (programme also repeated).

£4,000 was awarded to Creativity-in-Care.

To create a public touring exhibition with shadow-puppet workshops, that map experiences of change in attitudes and support over the last 30 years. The exhibition would contain collected objects from the old psychiatric hospital (Craig Dunain), plus new creative representations of experiences today.

The exhibition would be installed in public venues (e.g. community hall), with volunteer support, and tour Inverness, Ullapool, Skye and Caithness. The creative workshops will use shadow puppetry. This highly visible representation of experiences of support then and now, allows an option to be anonymous if desired. The shadow puppet shows will get passed from venue to venue (either as filmed or live shadow theatre pieces). All events will be open and advertised to the general public in each area.

£1,208 was awarded to Reeltime Music.

Project name; 'see me', I'm creative
To provide an exciting, innovating and creative work placement programme, delivering the following:

• Up to four young people, with experiences of mental ill-health, a work placement at a local community music organisation
• 25 hour placement for each young person (preferably 2 x 1 week placement for two young people per week)

The placement will be based around the theme of stigma and discrimination associated with mental ill-health. We are regularly asked to provide work placements but feel that we may not always be providing them to those who need it most; therefore this programme would ensure equality and inclusion for all.

The placement will involve working with the young people to produce something creative, such as a song or DVD documentary about their experiences of mental ill-health, while also giving them hands-on experience of working within the creative industries on our specific mental health themed projects.

£3,000 was awarded to Healthy 'n' Happy Ltd trading as Cambuslang & Rutherglen Community Health Initiative (CHI).

Project name: SPEAK OUT – Camglen Connections
Empower participants to have a voice, equipping them with the skills and confidence to speak out, challenging stigma and changing public perceptions of mental health.

Support and train volunteers with lived experience of mental ill-health through scripting, interviewing, and technical processes culminating in a series of live programmes broadcast on Camglen Community Radio. They will tell their personal stories of living with mental ill-health and recovery and interview relevant individuals in the field, potentially including 'see me'.

The group will be filmed during each stage of this journey and after broadcast will work on editing and voice-overs, finalising a film for launch. We envisage this happening in a number of formats, e.g. launch event in local community venues, DVD to be circulated locally, taking it into schools, youth groups, workplaces. It would also be made available as an on-line resource and focus for future social media campaigns.

£2,500 was awarded to Tynepark Multimedia Group.

Project Name: Getting there
People with lived experience of mental ill-health will benefit from being involved in a user-led drama project. Participants will take part in script writing workshops and contribute towards the production of a 30-40 minute sketch play on various mental health themes. Those who wish can take on an acting role or be involved in the other aspects of the theatre production.

The main aims of the project are to involve participants in creative expression, build their confidence and teach them new skills by using theatre. It will also raise public awareness of mental health issues by staging performances of the play which will be designed to be entertaining, poignant and thought-provoking.

The play will be performed for community groups throughout the Lothian's. We plan to put on four performances of the play. After each performance we intend to facilitate a lively discussion about the issues raised therein.

£4,000 was awarded to The Consultation and Advocacy Promotion Service (Collective Advocacy Service).

Project Name: Mental Health defined by people with lived experience – a short film
We will create a short film with people with lived experience of mental health issues from a variety of backgrounds. The film will look at their definitions of their life experiences and the labels they have been given. The aim is to create a film where people with lived experience define mental health and mental ill-health in their own terms.

We aim to explore the theme of labels and self-definition with different community groups including Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender groups, Black and Minority Ethnic groups and students through workshops.

With the support of our project worker people will be trained to use film equipment and be fully involved in making and editing the film. We will run a community event to promote the film and discuss the message of tackling stigma around mental health and offer to show the film at community events, conferences, training and strategic meetings.

£4,000 was awarded to Mind Your Head.

Project Name: Mind Your head Youth Roadshow
The road shows will be led by young people who have lived experience of mental health. The agenda will be driven by their own experiences and how they wish to share that with pupils throughout Shetland. It may include dealing with exam stress, what it's like being a carer, how it feels to experience mental ill health – we don't know until we have recruited our youth volunteers but we do know that the whole event will be designed to stimulate positive discussion whilst raising awareness and understanding amongst young people of their own and others mental health wellbeing.

Partners are essential in the delivery of this project. We will work closely with local agencies to support our youth volunteers in the development, training, planning and delivery of the Road show.

To ensure the success of this project we are keen to empower our young people to take the lead and to make the road show their own.

£2,500 was awarded to Tayside Carers Support Project.

To hold a fashion show to raise awareness of what people who have lived experience of mental health are doing. The show will be arranged and publicised by our group and some of the cared for people will take part in the event on the night.

We will contact local clothes shops in order to find partners to work with us.

Group members will take on the role of P.R. and publicising the event. They will work together to write up a story about the event which will be distributed to the local media. This will include papers and radio, as well as using new media such as social networking sites and blogs.

The group will then hold a debrief session to discuss how the project has gone and what they have learned that they can use in the future.

To make a DVD of the project.