Young Women in Mind programme
Overview
Overview
- Grant size: £60,000 to £100,000 spread over three years.
- What funding covers: Project costs, staff costs and fees, advocacy, learning and evaluation costs.
- Location of work: North East England and Yorkshire and the Humber.
- Key dates: This programme will re-open on 12 May 2025. The deadline for stage one applications will be: 7 July and for stage two: 22 August. Final decisions will be made in November.
- Success rate:In 2023, 47% of those invited to apply were successful.
Introduction
They set up the Young Women in Mind programme (previously known as the Young Women’s Mental Health programme) to help improve the mental health of young women aged 16-25 in the UK. We’ve committed £5 million in funding over five years (2021-2026). Their grants go to charities that increase young women’s access to high quality, age and gender specific mental health services.
They aim to have a relational approach to their grant making, and given the annual budget available (£1m), they have focussed on specific geographical areas for this programme in order to work closely with their grantees. They will review the geographical remit in 2026.
Their grants are part of a wider strategy to improve young women’s mental health. They also do research, advocacy and development work in this area. See their Theory of Change here for more information.
Purpose of the programme
Recent years have seen a sharp rise in mental ill health among women. Young women are especially vulnerable, with over 25% experiencing mental health problems, such as anxiety, depression and self-harming - almost three times the rate of young men. Social factors and structural inequalities such as lower income, caring responsibilities, and the trauma of domestic and sexual abuse exacerbate these problems and make it difficult for them to access resources and services.
Those in the 16 to 25 age group experience many life challenges, and most mental health problems reveal themselves before the age of 24. Added to this, the transition from children’s to adult mental health services leaves many young people unable to get help when they need it most.
Their Young Women in Mind programme is about finding effective ways to help young women whose mental health needs would otherwise go overlooked. They intend to build on existing evidence of the value of age and gender appropriate mental health provision by supporting charities that directly engage with young women and who offer sustained and fully integrated programmes of support.
They also aim to encourage greater collaboration across service providers through facilitating grant recipients to come together as cohorts to share best practice, build a supportive peer-network as well as supporting advocacy to bring about policy changes.
Who can apply
To be eligible to apply to the Young Women in Mind programme your organisation must fulfil the following:
- Be a UK-registered charity
- Been in operation for at least three years
- Have an annual income of between £100,000 and £1 million
- Work or project is located in specified areas.
The types of organisations they fund
You need to be an organisation that:
- Directly engages with young women aged 16-25 years old.
- Offers age, gender and trauma informed mental health services.
- Strives for equality.
- Provides safe, women-only services and/or spaces that are accessible and welcoming to young women.
- Involves those with lived experience in the design of your services. This goes beyond consultation and takes a more collaborative approach.
- Creates a fully integrated, “wrap around” programme of mental health support.
- Is embedded within the community and offers culturally and community sensitive services.
- Is willing to form a cohort with other grantees throughout the 3-year grant period. This gives you the chance to explore best practice and advocate for wider change.
- Has an impact that reaches beyond immediate beneficiaries of the work.
Available funding
They receive far more applications than they can support. In this programme, they fund fewer organisations, providing larger grants.
Organisations can request between £60k to £100k, spread over three years.
Funding can be tailored to meet the needs of your project. You can apply for project delivery costs as well as core costs (e.g. a contribution toward salaries of your core staff and building overheads).
They also encourage applicants to consider costs associated with monitoring and evaluating their work, networking, advocacy/campaigning activities and sharing good practice (e.g. networking, publications, convening groups).
They do not provide unrestricted funding.
Note - Not open to organisations based in Northern Ireland in 2025.