19/01/2022
Hi everyone,
We have some sad news to share with you but also something that we hope will provide some optimism going forward.
Over the past year, Hearts and Minds has faced significant financial and operational difficulties. We have been dealing with Covid, issues of long term staff absences, and not having enough money to replace staff who have left the organisation. All of this has put a huge amount of pressure and stress on the Hearts and Minds team, but we have been trying our very best to carry on in the face of these challenges.
Sadly, despite our best efforts, we are now in a position where we do not have enough funding, or staff capacity, to provide the infrastructure needed to continue running and supporting groups in their current format. The board of trustees has therefore taken the difficult decision that Hearts and Minds will cease operations at the end of January and the charity will be officially wound-up at the end of March.
We are all absolutely devastated by this news, and we know this will come as a painful shock to our community and our many supporters and partner organisations.
However, as a team we are very passionate about the work of Hearts and Minds, and we do not want our community to disappear.
With this in mind, the staff and volunteers, are currently exploring ways that we might be able to continue holding some of our group spaces beyond January, voluntarily. We are not sure yet what this will look like, or how many groups we might be able to hold, but we will post updates about this as soon as further decisions have been made.
Official Hearts and Minds groups will run up until the last week of January, by which point we hope to have a clearer picture of what will come next.
We want to thank everyone who has supported Hearts and Minds in the past. We are all proud of what has been achieved during its four years and feel we have demonstrated the value of and need for ongoing peer support projects.
Love from the Hearts and Minds team ###
