Youth Mental Health Fund: Providing Meaningful, Lasting Support to Innovative Mental Health Programmes

Deadline: 18 May 2018

Social Innovation Fund Ireland (SIFI) in partnership with the Department of Rural and Community Development is currently seeking applications for its Youth Mental Health Fund to provide meaningful, lasting support to innovative mental health programmes and initiatives that reach out to young people before and during the societal, academic, physical, and emotional pressures of early adolescence, adolescence and early adulthood.

The fund is open to all innovative projects offering either preventive supports or interventions for young people and their mental health.

Funding Information

Social Innovation Fund requires a minimum of €20,000 private funding per year for a minimum period of 2 years for the Youth Mental Health Fund.

Eligibility Criteria

Applicants must be over 18 years old.
Applications must come from an entity that has a not for profit legal form eg a school, charity or social enterprise. For profit entities are excluded.
Social Innovation Fund Ireland staff, directors and their immediate family members, are excluded from applying.
Applicants must have not-for-profit legal status to be considered for the Youth Mental Health Fund. For example: charity, company limited by guarantee, trust etc…
Projects applying to the Youth Mental Health Fund must meet the standard SIFI and Youth Mental Health Fund core criteria listed below:
- Social Innovation Fund Ireland Core Criteria
  - The project must address a critical social issue – in this case, youth mental health
  - The project proposed must be innovative in an Irish context
  - The project must have potential and a desire to scale or replicate in Ireland (it may also have potential internationally, but this is not a requirement)
  - The project must provide evidence that it is up and running, or has been tested at least in a minimal way
  - The project must be based on the island of Ireland and make its main impact in the Republic of Ireland
  - Applicants must come from an entity that has a not-for-profit legal form e.g. company limited by guarantee, trust etc.
- Youth Mental Health Fund Core Criteria
  - The project must focus on young adolescents, adolescents and young people up to the age of 25.
  - The project must use the most up to date evidence-based approaches such as best practices from internationally accredited programs
  - The project must have a research or evaluation component, for example, it must have built in an assessment or evaluation of impact from the start (including the use of direct feedback from young people)
  - The project must have secured a minimum of €20,000 per year for 2 years in private pledged donations.