Brighter Berkshire was a Community Interest Company (CIC) incorporated in January 2018 after a the Year of Mental Health in 2017.

We have decided to have a break from running the company for a while, as volunteers, there are times when we need to prioritise our own home, health and work.

It built on the community led year long initiative over 2017 which aimed to help reduce stigma about mental health & improve local opportunities through engaging as many people as possible locally in conversations about mental health, helping to normalise and give parity to mental health issues.

The activities were driven and delivered by hundreds of people who have been affected by mental health issues, people who have used mental health services, carers of people affected by mental health issues and people who have worked in mental health services. It is through their passion and commitment we engaged many thousands of people in positive conversations about mental health.

As a group of volunteers, we worked in partnership with Berkshire Community Foundation to help raise £250,000 to fund local projects and voluntary organisations supporting those with mental health issues, plugging some of the gap left through austerity and cuts to local services. This money will be given to local mental health services on 7th March 2018. We also worked in partnership with BBC Radio Berkshire to help raise awareness through a monthly show called Taking Heads which was presented by 3 people who had lived experience of mental health issues. Listen to the shows here. 

Our Board of Advisors influenced priority areas of work and some continue to work on new programmes which support these priorities.

1.Adverse Childhood Experiences – Helping educate the local population on root-causes of mental health in childhood. We will support the work of The Wave Trust and the groundbreaking initiative to support Reading as a Trauma Informed Community.

2.Signposting to support early help helping to make more visible the current resources across Berkshire and helping to connect these resources to support people who first need mental health support.

3.Workplace and employment  to helping to increase awareness and reduce stigma in the workplace and increase local opportunities for people with mental health issues to remain in work or gain employment. We will support the work of Ethical Reading in their priority area of improving mental health in the workplace.

4.Crisis support  to helping to improve the services for those who feel in crisis. We will support the voice of service users and carers to be heard in improving local access to services when needed.