Good news alert!
We have been awarded the Star Project award and a cash prize in the ‘Peer Support in Marginalised Communities’ Category of the Marsh Awards, run by The Marsh Charitable Trust and the national mental health charity MIND.
The annual awards seek to recognise outstanding work in the not for profit sector and particularly excellence in mental health peer support.
Thank you to our wonderful community and to our supporters because you are the ones who make it happen. What a way to end our first year!
Here is a statement from Founder Director and Peer Support Lead Charlotte Fox said:
“We are overjoyed for our work to be recognised through this award and it is especially wonderful to have done so in our start-up year. The finalists in our category were all excellent and it was delightful to be a part of a ceremony showcasing the value of peer support and how it makes a difference.
Autistic people are a marginalised community, many of whom experience appalling levels of poor mental health. Too often we are excluded from mainstream conversations about wellbeing and exposed to support services which are not tailored to our needs, this is further impacting mental health and causing further marginalisation and harm. My own journey reflects this lived experience.
Imagine having never met anyone like yourself in your whole life. Not one person who shares the same mental health challenges, the same identity, shares a way of being. Imagine how isolating and damaging to your own health, identity and belief systems that could be?
Then you are in a group of people who talk as if they could be sharing your own story. The feeling of safety and acceptance for some of us for the first time in our lives is liberating and empowering.
To be commended for our professional approach by the judging panel on the night is testament to our commitment to delivering quality, safe and effective wellbeing support for autistic adults.
We are thrilled to be able to demonstrate the power and effectiveness of grassroots autistic led mental health intervention, truly doing it for ourselves and we are so proud to be able to represent the autistic community.”