The Side by Side programme
In September 2014, the Big Lottery Fund awarded Mind £3.2 million to improve access to peer support across England.
With this funding, we ran a 2-year programme called Side by Side, in collaboration with 9 local Minds, Bipolar UK and grant-funded projects.
Together, we aimed to:
- Build an evidence base for the effectiveness of one to one, group and online peer support
- Promote the value of peer support to people with experience of mental health problems, service providers and commissioners
- Improve the lives of people experiencing mental health problems across England through access to peer support
What we did
The Side by Side programme delivered peer support to 17,936 people online and 3,255 in person, and promoted peer support to nearly 74,000 people.
With this funding, we were able to award 37 grants to local peer support projects across 9 pilot areas:
- Coventry
- Devon
- Lancashire
- Leeds
- London
- Northampton
- Southampton
- Suffolk
- Teesside
How peer support is turning lives around
In this short video, Roseanne shares how the support of others led her to set up her own peer support group, 'Swift-Tees'.
