What we do
What is our aim?
Barnwood Trust’s vision is to make Gloucestershire a better place for disabled people and people with mental health challenges.
We have four goals, which are for disabled people and people with mental health challenges to:
- follow their passions and take up opportunities
- live in well designed homes in welcoming, sustainable communities
- be fully involved in creating welcoming communities, spaces and places
- influence people, places and organisations to make positive changes on disability issues and inclusion
How?
We make this change happen in three ways:
- Funding
The Trust is a long-established charitable foundation and the steward of funds on behalf of the people of Gloucestershire. We provide funding to individuals, organisations, groups and places. Our funding is informed by research, and supported by relationships that increase its impact.
As well as responding to requests for funding, we also identify priority areas for investment that will benefit disabled people and people with mental health challenges, and then initiate partnerships and projects for this investment.
- Listening and Learning
We want to hear from disabled people and people with mental health challenges about what needs to change in the county to make things better. We believe in strength in numbers and the importance of every voice.
Barnwood Trust has a research programme that is focussed on disability and mental health. Our research helps us, and others, to drive systemic and societal change, through campaigning and policy work.
We have a learning programme which builds thinking and capacity in the county and helps participants to understand more about disability, mental health, and how to make change in the county.
- Changing Conditions
Barnwood works across the county proactively in place-based development, brokering collaborations and introducing funding where necessary, to create societal and systemic change which will benefit disabled people and people with mental health challenges.
We use our convening power with people, groups, and organisations locally and county-wide, to drive that systemic and societal change, as a means of influencing conditions impacting on disabled people and people with mental health challenges
Strategic review and changes
This strategy has been evolving since 2011. Between 2011 and 2020, Barnwood’s programme of work looked different, although the strategic goals remain unchanged.
Key initiatives such as introducing the concepts and practices of Asset-Based Community Building to the county and creating a new form of engagement called ‘Welcoming’, helped to create the conditions for more inclusive and welcoming communities across the county, appreciating the many existing strengths that could be built upon. This enabled the Trust to become more fully embedded in lives and communities across Gloucestershire, as well as seeding new ideas and ways of thinking for a range of different organisations and services in the county.
During 2020, it was clear that the devastating early impact of the pandemic was both exacerbating the significant inequalities experienced by disabled people and people with mental health challenges, and challenging the finances of charities and community groups, so that a different response was required from the Trust.
We undertook a strategic review in the second half of 2020 which led to the cessation of our frontline community building and welcoming work.
We are now focussed on our three programmes of Funding, Listening and Learning, and Changing Conditions.
We would love to hear from you if you have thoughts or questions about our strategy. Please get in touch at info@barnwoodtrust.org