The overarching aim of the Fund is to support community-based initiatives that promote and develop good mental health and wellbeing and/or mitigate and protect against the impact of distress and mental ill health within the adult population (aged 16 or over), with a particular focus on prevention and early intervention. 

 Specifically, it aims to: 

• Tackle mental health inequalities through supporting a range of ‘at risk’ groups (as outlined in the Equalities section). 

• Address priority issues of social isolation and loneliness, suicide prevention and poverty and inequality with a particular emphasis on responding to the cost of living crisis and support to those facing socio-economic disadvantage. 

• Support small ‘grass roots’ community groups and organisations to deliver such activities. 

• Provide opportunities for people to connect with each other, build trusted relationships and revitalise communities. 

The Fund supports initiatives which promote good mental health and wellbeing at a small scale, grass roots, community level. It will be accessible to all groups, no matter how small or inexperienced they are (including unconstituted groups). It can support both new and existing groups or projects, and it is AVA’s intention that new and unconstituted groups will be supported with governance, funding and volunteering advice that facilitates them to build internal capacity. These do not have to have mental health and wellbeing as their main focus, but their application does have to clearly benefit the mental health and wellbeing of people in the community that they serve, be that a community of geography or a community of interest. 

 Applications can be accepted from a range of community & voluntary, ‘not for profit’ organisations, associations, groups and clubs or consortiums/partnerships who have a strong community focus for their activities.

The focus of The Fund is on the adult population and on projects which help whole communities and/or community groups to make a difference to the lives of individuals. For the purposes of The Fund, the adult population is defined as being people aged 16 years and over. 

Through the assessment process, the assessors will ensure that funding is allocated to initiatives which have a focus on delivering against the aims and principles of The Fund as described previously. Whilst The Fund will support applications for the expansion of existing activities (including for projects that were supported in previous rounds), emphasis will be placed on applications that provide additionality (i.e. new and innovative projects) and not on simply providing replacement funding. 

You must complete an eligibility form. This will enable you to see if you are likely to be eligible to apply to the fund. If the answer is yes, a full application form will be sent to you. If AVA already holds details about your group, the application form will include the details we hold and you are invited to check/amend these rather than start the application from scratch. If we don’t hold information about your group, you will be sent a blank application form.

If the answer through the eligibility checker is no, you will receive a message telling you why, and you will be invited to ask for support to understand this further if you would like to.

Complete the eligibility form here

Please note: applications will only be accepted online using the designated form. 

To access support relating to The Fund, the application process, or for any other reason, please use the following methods:

• Complete the Support Request Form. Your enquiry will be passed to the most appropriate person, and you will be contacted via the method you have requested within the form.

• Phone 03718 110008 between 10am and 2pm, Monday to Thursday.

To read the Local Delivery Plan in full, click here.

For a Partnership Letter, click here

For the Application Questions, click here