Youth Arts and Health Trust provides arts therapies for children and young people in Devon. It works with local authorities, organisations, schools and directly with families and cares deeply about “plugging the gap” for families and young people who are struggling to access mental health support due to financial, social or other disadvantage. Devon Community Foundation (DCF) has awarded the charity a number of grants over the years, including one of its very first back in 2017.
When founder and director Laura Blatherwick originally set up the charity she was also working as a specialist arts therapist for the NHS. She secured a place on a course with the School for Social Entrepreneurs (SSE), which gave her the confidence and skills to get started, but the way forward still seemed uncertain.
“There was a moment when I thought, can I really do this, can I make this into something?” remembers Laura. “Devon Community Foundation gave us our first grant that was outside of SSE funding. It wasn’t a lot of money but it gave me the confidence to think, yes, we can do this, we’ve got the support of Devon Community Foundation.”
Youth Arts and Health Trust now has arts therapy rooms in Exeter and Newton Abbot and also provides its services in schools and other settings across the South West. Alongside this it offers an online arts therapy programme, Anxiety and Me. An education edition of the Anxiety and Me workbook is also available and Youth Arts and Health Trust offers training for professionals working with young people to use this within their roles.
Devon Community Foundation has been able to provide various grants along the way to support the development of the charity, but Laura is keen to emphasise that the foundation does much more than simply handing over money. DCF has helped her to make connections with others working in the same field in Devon, for example through facilitating sessions for funded groups to meet and share successes and challenges. Staff at DCF have also supported Laura in looking beyond individual services to creating wider impact for the sector. This has led to the Like Minds Network, which is also funded by Devon Community Foundation and brings together organisations working in mental health in the voluntary and third sector.
Laura says she appreciates DCF’s willingness to be flexible with funding, to be open-minded about what is needed and to adapt as this evolves. She has got to know staff through visits and dialogue events, and knows she can always pick up the phone for a chat if needed. A strong relationship of trust has developed where Laura feels comfortable being honest about the charity’s struggles as well as its successes. “It feels like we’re genuinely working alongside each other, making a difference with the social issues that we’ve identified.”
