Royal Foundation makes biggest single grant of £2m for digital mental health start-up
Melanie May | 10 October 2017 | News
The Royal Foundation of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry has announced that it is to invest £2m in a digital mental health start-up that will develop new digital tools to help people start conversations around mental health.
The new digital mental health start-up will be led by CEO Victoria Hornby, currently Director of Programmes at the Foundation, and a Board of technology experts. It will prioritise tools that could be of particular benefit to young people who are more likely to be seeking advice and help online and on their phones.
The funding is the largest single grant The Royal Foundation has made since it became fully operational in 2011 and has come about as a result of the Royal Foundation’s Heads Together campaign, through which it has identified a need for better tools to help give people the confidence to start conversations about mental health.
Sir Keith Mills, Chairman of The Royal Foundation said:
“We are incredibly proud of the millions of conversations that our Heads Together campaign initiated on mental health. And we are delighted to be providing the seed funding for this new digital start-up that we hope will create new tools that will enable people to have conversations on mental health wherever they are and whenever they need to have them. We expect that the many of the tools developed by the start-up will be of enormous benefit to the UK’s incredible community of mental health charities.”
With the advice and support of its Heads Together partner charities, The Royal Foundation will also be investing in programmes to support better conversations on mental health in schools, workplaces, and within the defence community. Further announcements will be made in the year ahead.
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About Melanie May
Melanie May is a journalist and copywriter specialising in writing both for and about the charity and marketing services sectors since 2001. She can be reached via thepurplepim.com.