The bishops’ conference has given £70,000 in grants to 11 projects
relating to mental health in eight locales, it was announced last week.
The
Mental Health Project 2010-2012 has been established under the guidance
of Bishop Richard Moth, the bishop responsible for mental health, and
has been funded through donations from the Day for Life, which took
mental health as its theme for 2008, and suicide for 2009.
The project
began as a response to “Listening 2004: My Family My Church”, the
bishops’ conference initiative set up in the light of the UN year for
the family.
The Mental Health Project aims to support Catholic
communities in dealing with mental health issues, to identify and
highlight good practice in pastoral care and to develop a network to
Catholic groups with an interest in mental health support.
The
money, intended to act as a “seed fund” for the projects, has been
granted to projects in Norwich, Hertfordshire, Nuneaton, London,
Coleshill, Liverpool, Shrewsbury Diocese, and Milton Keynes, as well as
one project focused on prisons and two national projects. The grants
ranged in size from £250 to £14,936.
Notre Dame High School in
Norwich received £250 for the production of DVDs and booklet resources
to supplement a “Mindfulness in Schools” course for Year 11 students.
The money will pay for a course of eight one-hour lessons teaching
“mindfulness techniques” to around 180 pupils, helping them to cope with
anxiety in the run-up to exams.
A project in Hertfordshire to
create weekly “spiritual music” groups for the elderly and mentally ill
in hospitals was given £2,000. The money will be used to train
volunteers.
An award of £2,500 was made for the establishment of a
Christian support network in Nuneaton for those with psychotic, mood,
or personality disorders, as well as their carers.
The homeless
charity The Passage received £4,000. It hopes to use the money so that
its clients can produce a leaflet providing advice on staying mentally
healthy and to establish a peer mentoring project.
The Pastoral
Care Project, a charity specialising in the needs of those with dementia
and their carers, received £5,000 for the development of a Day of
Prayer for Dementia on March 19, through which the charity hopes to
raise awareness of the spiritual needs of the elderly and those with
dementia, as well as to help carers with the spiritual aspect of their
clients’ lives.
Another £5,000 was awarded for the setup of a
support group for female asylum seekers and their children, aimed at
reducing stress and arranging outings three times a year, and a
Christmas party for the children.
The group also hopes to involve the
local parish, as well as the University Catholic Chaplaincy and the St
Vincent de Paul Society.
An award of £6,240 was made to a project
in Milton Keynes aiming to offer mentoring and one-to-one support for
parents, and provide training for school staff to raise greater
awareness of the difficulties facing some families.
The project aims to
work with schools and enable them to establish local support networks,
and hopes to have a programme of consultation and advice for staff
across several Catholic schools to help with maintaining these networks.
A
total of £14,500 was awarded to the Diocese of Shrewsbury for one
year’s employment of a part-time mental health worker, who will set up
mental health support groups where they have been requested in the
diocese, primarily for those who have attended healing Masses or
diocesan mental health days.
The project also aims to prepare new
members to lead support groups, which will have a strong spiritual
dimension, and be a place for people to share their difficulties.
An
award of £7,500 was made for the production of a DVD called “Voices of
the Unheard”, which will show 10 Irish Travellers in prison telling
their story about the situation they face in prisons, and the issues
which affect their mental health.
The DVD is designed to complement
academic research into the situation of Irish Travellers in prisons in
England and Wales.
Another £7,500 was given to the Catholic Youth
Ministry Federation, to help Catholic youth organisations nationwide to
understand mental health issues.
The funds will also pay for research
into stress, anxiety and the desire for happiness among young Catholics,
the impact these have on their mental health, and the relationship with
their faith. The research aims to produce a toolkit of resources for
communities to respond to the research.
Telos Training received
£14,936 for the delivery nationwide of diocesan or deanery-based
workshops, a series of regional workshops aimed at the needs of the
Society of St Vincent de Paul, and a series of national workshops on
specialist topics.
The topics covered will be agreed with those
requesting the workshops. An online resource toolkit will be developed
for enabling parish discussions.
Bishop Moth said that the
bishops’ conference hopes to use the projects to develop a set of “best
practice” guidelines for pastoral care for those dealing with mental
health difficulties, to be deployed nationally at the parish level.