The Cart Shed Charity

Funded: May 2023

Blue Light Card Foundation is funding Cart Shed’s Days in the Woods initiative to support members of the Blue Light community experiencing mental health challenges.

Sectors supported: Blue Light community

The Cart Shed Charity works with young people aged 14-25 and adults of all ages who are experiencing emotional distress. The charity operates on a working farm in north Herefordshire.

Based on the principles of occupational therapy – finding meaning and purpose – their team of occupational therapists (OTs), tutors and volunteers use a strengths-based approach to enable people to manage their mental health and wellbeing in a way that ensures they can live well.

They use the inherent benefit of being outside in a woodland setting along with opportunities to learn new, creative skills to improve people’s mental health. They have a range of programmes that are designed to meet the differing needs of people experiencing emotional distress.

This grant will fund two programmes:

Resilience: for those in the Blue Light community who are struggling to maintain or gain employment because of their poor mental health

Wellbeing: for those in the Blue Light community who are experiencing debilitating mental health that prevents them from living well

Rather than define a programme by target audience, they invite possible participants (having received a referral) for a taster day. During this day, occupational therapists will add to the referral knowledge by exploring what the individual wishes to achieve. They are then offered a place on the most appropriate programme.

Katie Eastaugh, CEO of the charity said, “The Cart Shed is delighted to have received funding from Blue Light Card Foundation to increase the range of targeted support we can offer to key workers. The Cart Shed charity has worked with the Armed Forces community for many years and in recent times has become aware of the need to extend our service to better include other Blue Light and Care providers.

This funding enables us to promote our unique woodland based therapeutic service directly to those who often give so much they forget to look after themselves. Within hours of advertising the programme, several organisations came back to us, interested in what we were offering. We look forward to working with BLCF and Herefordshire’s Blue Light Card Community.”

For more information on Cart Shed’s programmes, please visit www.thecartshed.co.uk