Six organisations from across the North East and North Cumbria (NENC) have been successful in securing investments totalling over £127,000 from the Healthy Communities and Social Prescribing Grant Programme 2025/26, funded by the NENC Integrated Care Board (ICB) and coordinated by VONNE.
This funding will be being used to strengthen social prescribing and improve outcomes for people living and working across our region. The aim of the investment is to help improve social prescribing effectiveness - by developing new approaches/resources; support the development of impact measurement systems and tools for social prescribing; help tackle health inequalities in marginalised communities with unmet health and wellbeing needs; and promote and build awareness of and value in social prescribing services.
We are delighted to award the grants to the following VCSE organisations to take forward their projects:
ICOS’ Migrant Health in Sunderland project will provide holistic, one-to-one support to clients who struggle to access services and other opportunities online due to language barriers or lack of awareness. The service will improve the health of migrant people by offering holistic advice/advocacy/casework and support with accessing benefits and other essential services such as housing, registering with GP practices, rights, and wellbeing sessions. The project will focus on migrants experiencing exclusion from support networks, such as women affected by domestic abuse or individuals who have recently been granted refugee status.
Help for Health is a partnership project between West End Refugee Service and Walking With in North Tyneside that seeks to address health inequalities among refugees and people seeking asylum. The project will empower refugees to navigate the complex UK healthcare system, understand social prescribing activities, build resilience through mental health education and establish connections to vital community-based social prescribing models for wellbeing.
Edberts House’s Demonstrating Impact project centres on the HAY (How Are You) tool, a person-centred assessment tool designed for social prescribers to use with patients. HAY helps patients reflect on how they manage different areas of their lives and allows link workers to track progress. Currently, HAY supports around 3,000 patients annually in Gateshead across a wide demographic. Initially developed as a paper-based tool, the project will pilot the digital HAY tool across three areas in NENC: Gateshead, Darlington and Cumbria, helping GPs and other stakeholders understand the influence of wider determinants on health and wellbeing.
Men’s Pie Club is a movement of male-friendly, member-led clubs where men at risk of social isolation and loneliness connect through the simple, shared act of making pies at weekly clubs in community venues across the North East. In 2024, Men’s Pie Club piloted Xtra Ingredients (XI), a structured 6-week wellbeing programme that could act as gateway for men who may be unwilling or unable to commit to long-term groups, offering an achievable entry point into sustained peer support. Through the pilot, it became apparent that XI requires additional tools to robustly track food literacy, healthy habits and behaviour change. This new project will enable the co-design, testing, and embedding of a new monitoring and evaluation framework for Xtra Ingredients, turning evaluation findings into practical guidance for delivering, adapting, and sustaining XI in other parts of the region.
Cultivate Northumberland is a partnership that connects a network of grassroots groups, each managing local green space or allotment provision, with the shared aims of improving health, wellbeing, and environmental outcomes in their communities. Many operate in areas of high deprivation, where barriers to physical activity, limited green space access, and poor health outcomes are prevalent. The project, which is overseen by Groundwork North East, aims to build on the successes of the existing network to establish a social prescribing culture within the Cultivate Northumberland partnership. A framework for referrals into the sites will be developed through increased partnership engagement to create strong links with social prescribers, health networks, and local infrastructure organisations to ensure activities reach more of those most in need.
Healing Roots to Rise is a new pilot project in North Cumbria seeking to better understand and establish access to racial healing spaces with and for Black and Brown young people. It will unite three organisations together – Carlisle Youth Zone, Anti Racist Cumbria and PAC Therapy – to co-facilitate a dedicated weekly safe space for Black and Brown young people to access and shape culturally affirming and racial trauma-informed support. Interwoven throughout the project will be an embodiment theme, with group and one-to-one workshops plus a Nurture Through Nature programme delivered in collaboration with Cumbria Wildlife Trust. Aligned to the principles of social prescribing, Healing Roots to Rise will connect people, increase access to and opportunity for activities designed to improve health and wellbeing, and create a pathway to co-create better youth racial-healing support.
Speaking about the funded projects, Richard Boggie, VCSE Health Partnerships Strategic Manager, VONNE said: “We were so impressed by the range and quality of the applications received. The six supported projects can all hit the ground running and cover a nice mix of infrastructure and delivery work and will make an impact across different geographies, urban and rural places, different age groups and communities. We are really excited to be working with them all.”
VONNE are proud to be enabling investment into these projects as part of the Healthy Communities and Social Prescribing Grants Programme we coordinate. This programme is funded by the NENC ICB through their Healthier and Fairer workstream, which has a particular interest in enhancing the role of the VCSE to achieve positive population health and wellbeing outcomes.