Health grants help rural communities and those suffering with their mental health

Three community groups in North Herts have shared £50k from the council’s latest round of Health Protection Board funding.

Hertfordshire’s Health Protection Board (HPB) was established in June 2020 led by the county’s Director of Public Health. Money was made available for local councils to distribute to community and voluntary organisations to ensure they remain viable and sustainable during and after the Covid pandemic.

Citizens Advice North Herts (CANH) – £19,327

CANH was awarded nearly £20k towards a post-Covid rural outreach project which will help them to continue raising awareness of their vital advice service, especially in rural areas of the district. The project will enable them to respond to the local needs in areas that have relatively high levels of vulnerable residents and isolation, for instance by providing group sessions on issues such as energy saving, budget setting and scam awareness.

Catherine Bennett, Community Engagement Manager at Citizens Advice North Herts said: “Over the past couple of years we have increased access to our services for people who work, people with mobility issues or lack of transport, and people with young children etc by providing more remote and digital advice. However, this depends on clients having the skills to use these channels, and having access to broadband and a telephone. Rural residents are most at risk of being excluded from our services as many struggle to travel to one of our offices and can’t use our other channels to access us. This grant will enable us to develop, recruit and train a rural community outreach team and help us meet that need.”

Howard Garden Social and Day Care Centre – £15,651

This money will partly cover the cost of a Centre Manager post on a 20 hour a week, 12-month fixed-term contract. The day centre has provided essential companionship and support for lonely and older residents of Letchworth and the surrounding area for the last 60 years. This role will enable them to enhance and expand their current services particularly to those suffering social isolation through the effects of Covid, and/or those living in more rural areas who don’t have easy access to these types of services.

PoetsIN – £15,022

This creative mental health charity will use just over £15k to deliver a portfolio of proven programmes, wellbeing workshops and mentoring, to support people with mental health issues living in the district. The majority of funding will go towards helping young people, with a fifth going towards working with older people. Exacerbated by the pandemic and lockdowns, isolation, loneliness, reduced social skills and confidence, anxiety and depression have led to so many people struggling. Their work will help people to re-address their situation, learn new coping skills, relieve depression and anxiety impacted by social isolation and other individual factors.

Councillor Judi Billing, Executive Member for Community Engagement, said: “Rural communities can sometimes be overlooked so it’s important to highlight that the majority of this latest round of Health Protection Board funding is going to specifically help those who may feel isolated and find it more difficult to access services that are based in one of our main towns.

“While Citizens Advice North Herts and Howard Garden Social and Day Care Centre are well established service providers, it is great to support a relatively new organisation PoetsIN, which is working to combat the stigma of living with mental health issues and fill the gap for people who unfortunately have to wait for help from the NHS.”

In addition, earlier this year in March, three other groups were allocated funding from the Health Protection Board:

• North Herts Minority Ethnic Forum got £19,975 towards the running costs of their Community Resource Centre.
• Age UK Hertfordshire got £14,300 to cover the costs of staff and overheads to run services that support older, vulnerable people, in order to prevent them from using reserves.
• Resolve got £11,594 towards online and in-person drug and alcohol support, advice, and treatment services.