Staffordshire County Council is keen to support the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector in Staffordshire to assist with public health priorities to improve healthy lifestyles promote independence, self-care and reablement by providing a range of one-off grants.
This fund will help organisations to support the outcomes of Better Health Staffordshire, Supportive Communities and 5 Ways to Wellbeing to sustain existing activities and support organisations in responding to the challenges faced by local people by:
- Preventing ill health and promoting self-care to enable individuals to be independent and live in their own homes for as long as possible
- Reducing loneliness and social isolation
- Supporting healthy aging
- Increasing access to affordable healthy, nutritious food
- Increasing access to opportunities for people to ‘move more’
- Enabling mental wellbeing and promoting healthy lifestyles as the norm
Examples of proposals that would be considered (but not limited to):
- Supporting local Community Champions to promote community activities particularly using approaches blending both digital and non-digital
- Assisting local people around form filling
- Supporting local people with household tasks
- Setting up/supporting existing local activities in communities to help reduce loneliness and social isolation
- Support to make health and care information more easily understood
- Support people in the community to understand how and where to get health and care help
- Encourage communities to connect with each other to reduce loneliness and isolation
- Setting up local activities to support people who are exiting structured lifestyle interventions/programmes, for example weight management programmes or exercise referral schemes within local leisure centres. The objectives of which are to help maintain the positive behaviour change around ‘moving more’ and/or healthy diets.
- Equipment (e.g. raised beds, tools) to enhance an existing initiative that aims to grow healthy produce within limited green space.
- Piloting a new community cooking class, linked to a community gardening group/community food initiative.
- Co-producing healthy eating recipe cards to enhance a community garden project or community cooking class.
- Harnessing existing community assets to support communities to ‘move more’
- Encouraging healthy living to stay healthy and/or manage health conditions
- Initiatives promoting use of the Arts as a way to maintain/improve mental wellbeing
- New/existing groups using practical, hands-on activities in ways that help to encourage positive outcomes for mental health and emotional wellbeing
- Aiding people in the community to have the confidence & knowledge necessary to maintain their own mental health and wellbeing, and that of those around them.
Organisations we can support:
- Constituted Voluntary groups
- Constituted Community groups
- Community Interest Companies
- Registered Charities
- Social Enterprises
- Parish Councils
We are particularly keen to see applications from smaller, grassroots level groups.
Organisations should have been operating for a minimum of 12 months
Grants of between £3000 and £25,000 are available.
A total of £50,000 from this fund will be reserved to provide smaller grants of between £3000 and £8000.
All grants will need to be fully spent by 31st March 2025.
Types of costs that we will fund
- Equipment costs
- Capital costs relating to the project
- Training costs
- Project costs
- Event costs
- Revenue/ staff costs for the project
- Overhead costs – maximum of 10% of the total grant requested
Round 1
- The fund will open for applications on 29th April 2024
- All applications must be submitted by 5pm on 31st May 2024
- The panel to decide on awards will take place in June 2024
Dates for Round 2 will be announced in Summer 2024
