Young people in the borough who are struggling with their mental health will get a boost from an £8,000 grant to a Richmond charity.

Art & Soul runs creative workshops for adults and arranges visits to galleries and for their work to go on display in exhibitions.

It will use the thousands it received from the Baring Foundation to roll this therapeutic art programme out to young people who are facing mental health challenges.

Mental wellbeing in Richmond

A 2017 report highlights the scale of mental health problems among younger age groups.

The joint report from the Hampton Fund and Richmond Parish Lands Charity titled On the Edge said that young people in Richmond had the fourth highest rate of hospital admissions following self-harm in London and the wellbeing scores of 15-year-olds in the borough were below average for the capital.

Art & Soul's co-chair of trustees, Rachel Tranter, said the grant had come at an important time given predictions that the Covid-19 pandemic was likely to worsen the mental health problems of young people.

Sir Vince Cable, the patron of Art & Soul and the President of Arts Richmond, said he was delighted the charity would be able to expand their work to young people.

"I recall some outstanding exhibitions of art from vulnerable adults," he said.

"Now they are branching out to children and young people, which is all the more essential given the pressures on them from prolonged closure of schools and colleges."

Art & Soul future plans

Art & Soul now plan to build partnerships with existing local children's mental health services, including Achieving for Children, Off the Record and Richmond Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS).

The charity will share its knowledge and expertise with those groups already working with young people in need to provide 25 creative workshops, reaching 55 vulnerable local children and young people, beginning early next year.

Their therapeutic work with adults has also been boosted by a grant at the start of October from the National Lottery's Community Coronavirus Fund, designed to help voluntary groups through the extra challenges caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

During the pandemic the workshops for adults, which were run from the Exchange in Twickenham, have moved online.

Sessions are run by a trained art therapist and they aim to reduce isolation and improve the mental and emotional wellbeing of participants.

One adult participant commented: "I just feel so much better in myself. It's a way of going forward; it's definitely a positive experience."

Another said: "I've never tried art before and it's made me a much more independent person and totally changed the way I feel about myself."

Find out more at www.artandsoul.org.uk