The Vintners’ Foundation Committee regularly gives donations to charities involved in the important area of health and wellbeing. Examples of such charities include the suicide prevention charity Campaign against Living Miserably, and Strength and Learning Through Horses which provides a therapy and alternative education programmes for young people aged four to 25 years old who are struggling with social, emotional or learning challenges, leaving them excluded from mainstream education, or at risk of exclusion.

CALM is a mental health and suicide prevention charity with the aim to prevent lives lost to suicide, and help everyone to avoid living miserably. In the UK, every three minutes someone attempts to take their own life, that's 200,000 attempts every year. Tragically, someone will die by suicide every 90 minutes which equates to around 6,500 lives lost every year to suicide. Although anyone can feel suicidal, suicide is the biggest killer of young people in the UK. 1 in 14 young people have attempted suicide by the time they are 17 years old. Young women aged 10-24 have seen the highest rise in suicide in recorded history. 

What we fund

Following an initial grant, the CALM is now a favoured charity to which the Vintners’ Foundation supports their life-saving helpline service for anyone who is in crisis or struggling. CALM’s services are available 365 days a year from 5pm to midnight via phone, webchat, and WhatsApp. Recently CALM launched an industry-leading queue management functionality that allows users in the queue to know their position and estimated wait time, offering self- help techniques such as meditation or journaling, and finally, signposts to their online self-help guides and even to other services. They’ve already seen positive results from this function, with 35% of users finding what they needed and leaving the queue before speaking to a helpline worker. This frees up capacity for their team to be there for those who need them most. 

SLTH provides therapy and alternative education programmes for young people aged 4–25 years old who are struggling with social, emotional or learning challenges, leaving them excluded from mainstream education, or at risk of exclusion. Often they are from low-income households and live in areas of London where there is significant social and economic deprivation and all have low aspirations and self-belief. 

What we fund

Last year the Vintners’ Foundation awarded a grant to SLTH’s Alternative Education Programme to teach young people to care for and train horses. 12 vulnerable young individuals aged 11 and 12 participated in the 12-week programme, which ran for three hours a week and involved mucking out the horse’s stables, cleaning, grooming, exercising and caring for the horses’ ailments and injuries. The participants gained valuable life skills such as improved mental health and wellbeing, teamwork and leadership skills, as well as increased confidence in future education and/or employment prospects. Upon completion, the participants gained a QCF accredited Prince's Trust Employability Skills and were also able to achieve multiple AQA unit award scheme certificates, with each graduate receiving a personal reference. This meant they left the programme with the self-belief and evidence of skills required to gain employment or apply to re-enter education, thus preventing long-term disengagement with education, employment and their communities and the downhill spiral in mental wellbeing and future aspirations that this creates.