Press Releases

 

April 17th, 2008

BRISTOL CLUBHOUSE AWARDED £50,000 GRANT!

 

The Bristol Clubhouse – an employment project run by and for service users with mental health problems – has just been awarded a £50,000 grant from the Social Enterprise Investment Fund, administered by the Department of Health.

The Bristol Clubhouse is a project initiated by a group of adults with mental health problems, living in Aspects and Milestones Trust homes.  They started meeting two years ago to discuss the need locally for a service that would offer both a safe place to build confidence and skills, and a proven method to help people with mental health problems to get and keep real jobs in the community.  The Clubhouse, an internationally recognised model of recovery offers such an approach. Approximately only 20% of people with severe mental health problems have paid jobs, but the large majority of mental health service users say that they want to work – estimates range from 60% to 90%. 

The donation of £50,000 from the Social Enterprise Investment Fund is the first major donation to the project, and the project team is delighted. It will enable the Clubhouse to rent some accommodation for a base, and to employ a Clubhouse Manager. The Clubhouse Committee is made up entirely of service users, and in the last two years they have written a business plan and given a presentation of their aims to an audience of over fifty interested people from various social care organisations. Last year the group started to apply to grant awarding organisations for funding. Peter Laycock, Clubhouse Committee member said; “The whole Committee is really pleased with this donation, and it means we will be able to really get the project off the ground. We have been trying to get the project going for over two years, and we can’t wait to get started. We still need more money though, and we’re hoping that some of our other fundraising applications will bring in more funds.”

For more information on the Bristol Clubhouse, or services provided by Aspects and Milestones Trust, please call Jim Conley (Head of Mental Health Services) on 0117 9709376; email jimc@aspectsandmilestones.org.uk or visit our website www.aspectsandmilestones.org.uk