{"id":875602,"date":"2026-04-06T10:19:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T10:19:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/875602\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T10:19:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T10:19:16","slug":"1-1-million-to-address-loneliness-in-the-west-of-england-arts-council-england","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/875602\/","title":{"rendered":"\u00a31.1 million to address loneliness in the West of England | Arts Council England"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>St Monica Trust has been awarded \u00a3250,000 from our National Lottery Place Partnerships Fund to lead on\u00a0All Together Now,\u00a0a flagship cultural initiative in the West of\u00a0England.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Our support brings the total investment in the partnership to \u00a31.1 million, with additional support from the West of England Combined Authority, Bristol Beacon, the Grateful Society and Sirona Care &amp;\u00a0Health.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">At the heart of the new programme is the shared aim to help over 4,000 people feel less isolated. Partners will launch a targeted programme of creative events over the next two and a half\u00a0years.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Funding recipient\u00a0St Monica Trust\u00a0will work with over 50 organisations spanning culture, health, higher education and local government to help people in these communities feel a stronger sense of\u00a0belonging.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Lead delivery partner\u00a0Bristol Beacon\u00a0will bring together a consortium of local organisations to help connect residents with creative activities and remove barriers to\u00a0participation.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">As the first major cross-regional initiative of the West of England\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/impact-alliance.org.uk\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Impact Alliance<\/a>,\u00a0All Together Now\u00a0will take high-quality arts, culture and creativity to \u2018forgotten postcodes\u2019 across the subregion. Creative activities will be delivered in six communities identified as having a higher risk of loneliness. This includes four local geographies: Stockwood, Charfield, Somer Valley and the Mendip Villages. Other activities will target older people from Global Majority backgrounds and young people who identify as\u00a0disabled.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Plans also include a creative employability programme for young people not in education, work, or training. By July 2028, the programme intends\u00a0to:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\">Help over 4,000 people to feel less\u00a0isolated;<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\">Support around 1,300 people to take part in regular creative\u00a0activity;\u00a0<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\">Train 90\u00a0volunteers;<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\">Create 18 paid trainee\u00a0roles;<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\">And provide paid opportunities for over 100 freelance creative\u00a0practitioners.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Residents in each community will be able to shape the activities happening in their neighbourhood, deciding what they want to see and how the work will be delivered. Events will take place in pubs, train stations, local community centres, shopping centres, churches and village halls \u2013 and even on the road, such as a musical bus in the\u00a0Mendips.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cThrough the St Monica Trust\u2019s partnership with local communities, charities and other organisations, initiatives like\u00a0All Together Now\u00a0can address the causes of loneliness and maximise our impact, rather than individual grants acting as a sticking plaster for societal issues,\u201d says\u00a0David Williams, Chief Executive of the St Monica\u00a0Trust.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cRecognising the creativity and talent we have in our region, this programme will support communities, artists and practitioners to build new connections through music, art and shared experiences, and participate in cultural activities that they have helped to shape so they reflect their own identities and interests,\u201d says\u00a0Simon Wales, Chief Executive of Bristol\u00a0Beacon.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Helen Godwin, Mayor of the West of England, said: \u201cLoneliness and isolation have a devastating effect on people across our region. This fantastic programme aims to show the power that partnership, innovation and creativity have to strengthen social connection, improve wellbeing, and build more connected communities. Regional funding is supporting\u00a0All Together Now, helping young people into training and providing new opportunities for more than 100 local\u00a0creatives.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cAll Together Now\u00a0demonstrates place-based working at its most effective: cross-sector innovators uniting to confront societal challenges and create lasting change. It\u2019s thanks to National Lottery players that the Arts Council can invest in programmes like this across the country \u2013 and we hope this is just the start of a more inclusive future here in the West of England,\u201d says\u00a0Phil Gibby,\u00a0South West Area Director at Arts Council\u00a0England.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"St Monica Trust has been awarded \u00a3250,000 from our National Lottery Place Partnerships Fund to lead on\u00a0All Together&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":875603,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5008],"tags":[44329,5032,12673,4021,29780,248240,381,748,14338,248241,34451,9363,5034,393,5491,4884,62303,248239,6096,32592,1453,16,15,7474],"class_list":["post-875602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-england","tag-alliance","tag-april","tag-area","tag-arts","tag-authority","tag-beacon","tag-bristol","tag-britain","tag-care","tag-charfield","tag-chief","tag-combined","tag-council","tag-england","tag-executive","tag-great-britain","tag-lottery","tag-monica","tag-national","tag-together","tag-trust","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-west"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116357258935864326","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=875602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875602\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/875603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=875602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=875602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=875602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}