Close to three years ago, conversations about how to best to support the mental health provider charities that were struggling with the start of Covid-19 and lockdown began, and the idea of the Mental Health Sustainability Programme emerged.

Over the course of the Programme’s formal 2-years in operation, we have supported more than 100 small mental health charities providing essential services in the community, especially to those most marginalised. We have been able to offer small grants to ensure continued delivery of services and sustainability, support skills development through webinars and workshops, increase operational capacity through volunteering, and develop a long-term learning programme focusing on a range of topics relevant to small charities.

Our Evaluation Report produced by our partner Charity Fundraising Ltd, outlines the successes and learnings from the Programme as well as touching on recommendations for the future.

The Association continues to offer all organisations originally involved in the Programme valuable member support, opportunities for them to network with the wider sector and our partners, engage in peer support spaces to share learnings, and to influence national policy and practice through our work with Government departments. We remain committed to supporting small providers of mental health and wellbeing services and have ensured that this is embedded in all our workstreams, using the learnings from the two-year formal Programme to develop this further.