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otrbristol | 17th March 2015

Off the Record Bristol wins GSK Impact Award!

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We’re delighted to announce that Off the Record Bristol has won a GSK Impact Award!

The GSK IMPACT Awards, run in partnership with The King’s Fund, recognise and reward charities that are doing excellent work to improve people’s health and wellbeing. It is a prestigious accolade and we’re absolutely delighted that our work with young people across Bristol has been recognised in this way.

GSK have noted Off the Record Bristol’s innovation, management, partnerships, achievement, community focus and targeting need.

Only 10 charities win each year, selected by an esteemed judging panel.

In scooping this accolade, Off the Record Bristol will receive £30,000 in unrestricted funding, a film and other promotional materials to promote our work, as well as access to training and development activities managed by The King’s Fund estimated to be worth £6,000.

We’ll also be attending a swanky award ceremony at the Science Museum in London in May, where an overall winner will be announced.

Look out for our film in the coming months and do join in the chat on Twitter by using the hashtag #GSKIMPACTUK.

 

PRESS RELEASE:

Bristol charity wins national award for improving mental wellbeing of young people

Off the Record, a charity helping to improve the mental health of 11 to 25 year olds across Bristol and South Gloucestershire, has won a GSK IMPACT Award*. The charity beat over 350 organisations to win this national accolade, which recognises excellence in charities working in health and wellbeing.

One in 10 young people will suffer mental health problems – approximately three children in every classroom. The number of young people admitted to psychiatric hospitals annually has doubled since 2000. If young people’s mental health problems are not diagnosed and dealt with appropriately they can have a detrimental effect on health and wellbeing throughout life. More than half of adults with mental health problems were diagnosed in childhood, but it is believed that less than half of them received appropriate treatment at the time.

Off the Record provides a wide variety of services to young people with mental health issues, including one-to-one and group therapies for a range of issues such as anxiety, depression, self-harm, bullying and relationship difficulties. Its Resilience Lab project enables participants to learn about self-care, stress management and healthy coping strategies. The charity has also helped drive forward the development of youth community mental health provision in Bristol as part of a consortium of 10 other voluntary organisations and an NHS trust.

Much of its work is based on the philosophy that young people’s stress arises from their social and political context and this must be linked to our understanding of and response to mental health difficulties. This has led Off the Record to develop a strong social action programme of work. The Mentality Project is a participatory campaign to de-stigmatise mental health issues among young peple led by young people who have experienced them. Freedom is a project that provides a platform for both social support and activism around sexual and gender identities. While Participate! Act! Resist! uses participatory action research with young people to explore how the personal is political; connecting mental health to inequalities in gender, age, race and wealth.

The GSK IMPACT Awards, run in partnership with The King’s Fund, are designed to recognise the outstanding work of community-based health and wellbeing charities. In addition to the recognition and £30,000 of unrestricted funding, Off the Record will receive access to training and development worth an estimated £6,000. It will also be invited to join the GSK IMPACT Awards Network. This is a unique learning network supporting more than 60 award winning charities to develop their leaders, share and learn from each other’s experiences and expertise, and build the recognition of their significant and vital contribution to their communities.

Off the Record will receive its prize at a ceremony held at the Science Museum in London on Thursday 14th May, along with the other nine winners. An overall winner, who will receive a further £10,000 in unrestricted funding, will be revealed on the night.

Lisa Weaks, Third Sector Manager at The King’s Fund said:

‘Off the Record recognises the need to address mental health issues when people are young and to challenge discrimination. It is particularly inclusive, reaching those who most need its services. Clear thinking and strategic, it has ambitious plans for further growth and has helped drive forward the development of youth community mental health provision in its area.’

Simon Newitt, Chief Executive at Off the Record, said:

‘This award represents an important milestone for us. In 2015 OTR turns fifty years old and this feels like timely recognition of the organisations’s contemporary relevance as well as the teams high quality work with young people. It’s also affirming that our particular model of politically engaged mental health support has such esteemed and influential admirers.’

A judging panel of health and charity experts who chose the winners included broadcast journalist Fiona Phillips; Gilly Green, Head of UK Grants at Comic Relief; Sir Christopher Gent, Chair of GSK, and Sir Chris Kelly, Chair of The King’s Fund.

Notes to editors:

For further information, an interview or case study please contact Saskia Kendall at s.kendall@kingsfund.org.uk or 020 7307 2603. For further information about GSK, please contact Sarah Hornby at sarah.e.hornby@gsk.com or 07825 116090

Off the Record runs a range of services for 11 to 25 year olds across 15 sites in Bristol and South Gloucestershire to improve mental health and wellbeing. For further information please visit www.otrbristol.org.uk.

*GSK IMPACT Awards

The GSK IMPACT Awards, in partnership with The King’s Fund are designed to recognise the outstanding work of community-based health and wellbeing charities.The awards are open to charities working in health and wellbeing with an annual income of between £25,000 and £2million that are at least three years old. The name ‘IMPACT’ derives from the criteria that winners must have demonstrated in their application submissions: Innovation, Management, Partnership, Achievement, Community Focus and Targeting Need. For more information please visit: www.kingsfund.org.ukgskimpactawards

£340,000 in unrestricted prize money will be awarded to charities through the GSK IMPACT Awards this year in the UK. There are ten GSK IMPACT Award winners who each receive £30,000, and ten runner up organisations who each receive £3,000. An overall winner will be awarded an additional £10,000 at the award ceremony at the Science Museum in London on Thursday 14th May 2015.

Since the awards began in 1997, nearly 400 health and wellbeing charities have received a GSK IMPACT Award and funding totalling over £5million.

The 2016 GSK IMPACT Awards will be open for applications on 1st July 2015. For further information, please visit: www.kingsfund.org.uk/gskimpactawards

GSK – one of the world’s leading research-based pharmaceutical and health care companies – is committed to improving the quality of human life by enabling people to do more, feel better and live longer.  For further information please visit www.gsk.com

The King’s Fund is an independent charity working to improve health and health care in England. We help to shape policy and practice through research and analysis; develop individuals, teams and organisations; promote understanding of the health and social care system; and bring people together to learn, share knowledge and debate. Our vision is that the best possible care is available to all. For further information please visit www.kingsfund.org.uk