News
Lancaster Mental Health Project to Receive Share of £1/2 Million
An innovative new idea from the Lonsdale Unit in Lancaster, which is promoted through the TrusTECH Service Innovation Scheme, is one of ten grassroots projects from across the UK chosen to receive a share of £1/2m from The National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA) because of the impact it could have on the mental health service.
The brainchild of Carol Ann Bristow, a designer working locally with the Lancashire Care NHS Trust, the SEED Game is a simple board game, which as part of a larger project (the SEED Project) gives in-patients an equal say in the way their building and environment is designed.
To date the game has only been used at the Lonsdale Unit, but NESTA funding of £5,000 and additional business mentoring and support, will now allow Carol to turn her prototype into a marketable product and potentially secure a manufacturer so she can introduce the game to other units across the country.
According to Carol, the game is effective because it gives patients the confidence to voice views that can otherwise be hard to illicit. From Carol’s board game to funding for a therapeutic farm-based project for traumatised refugees and asylum seekers in London, the ten successful Innovations in Mental Health projects were chosen from over 500 applications from frontline workers, service users and their carers, all wishing to make a difference in their area.
The aim is that, with the right backing and guidance, each of the local initiatives will be supported to the point at which they can be adapted or rolled out at scale, on a national level. Each project will receive ongoing support from NESTA and its partners in the Innovations in Mental Health scheme, the Mental Health Foundation, Mental Health Media, Mind, Rethink and The Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health.
Commenting on their success, Carol Ann said:
“This is a great opportunity to develop the SEED Game and to get other service users involved in the design process when designing new healthcare environments. The award and the support from NESTA will help promote service user involvement and give a whole new dimension to environment design for Mental Health”.
Commenting on the projects selected, NESTA CEO, Jonathan Kestenbaum said:
“It is becoming increasingly clear that the solutions to some of the challenges we face in areas like mental health will not be found in the conventional places and cannot be left to government and the NHS. This project shows there are excellent ideas out there on the front line. With the right support, local initiatives like this have the potential to have a big impact across the UK”.
Innovations in Mental Health is part of NESTA’s Health Challenge – a series of experimental, high-impact projects and partnerships designed to demonstrate how to stimulate innovation in response to major social issues. Our focus is on understanding how to create new services, scale up social enterprises and support innovation in third sector organisations.
ends –
Notes to editors:
For further information or to request an interview, please contact the NESTA press office on 0207 438 2608.
The SEED Project
The SEED Game is part of the SEED Project, which gives in-patients an equal say in the way their building and environment is designed. Click here for further information about the SEED Project.
NESTA
NESTA is the National Endowment for Science, Technology & the Arts. With endowed funds of over £300 million, our mission is to transform the UK’s capacity for innovation. We do this in three main ways: by working to build a more pervasive culture of innovation in this country; by providing innovators with access to early stage capital; and by driving forward research into innovation, with a view to influencing policy.
The Mental Health Foundation is a leading UK charity that provides information and policy recommendations, carries out research, campaigns and works to improve services for anyone affected by mental health problems, whatever their age and wherever they live. For more information please contact Laura Gibson on 020 7803 1130 or Fran Gorman on 020 7803