LEADERS DEVELOPMENT
Lived Experience Leaders
Our LEx Leaders Programme aims to build the abilities and confidence of mental health lived experience (LEx) leaders and organisations to develop and effectively manage user-led community organisations and services.
Our two-year National Lottery funded programme came to an end in June 2023. See grant report >
Programme Currently Part-Funded
SUPPORTING LEADERS TO DELIVER!
The LEx Leaders Programme is Nestled within CATALYST's Mentoring & Advocacy Support Hub (MASH), and consists of three key project elements:
To support emerging BME entrepreneurs and grassroots organisations who are working in the field of wellbeing and mental health, by incubating and/or supporting them within Catalyst's operational structures and services. This will help to create both new and innovative approaches to BME mental health support, as well as providing positive role models from within the community.
To co-produce and maintain an online resources suite ( our ‘living toolkit’ ) which is freely available to all LEx Programme participants, Catalyst’s members and the wider public. This toolkit is also drawn from a series of training modules that were delivered in 2022 and 2023.
To work with the BME service providers and communities to build awareness, resilience and confidence to articulate their needs and become civic and community decision makers and future leaders.
The National Lottery said;
"The programme builds on the Leaders with Lived Experience Pilot Programme and is part of a wider journey to share power with communities, improve perceptions of LEx and create parity between different types of knowledge and experience.
"The impetus for the programme, its shape and vision, came from witnessing the commitment, innovation and resilience of the pilot cohort, particularly in the early stages of the Covid crisis when mainstream organisations were retreating. This confirmed that LEx experience leadership needs to be at the forefront of strategies for the future of civil society."
