MindOut, the LGBT Mental Health Project has gained its independence and become a separate registered charity, meaning it can retain its identity as a team of LGBT people working for LGBT people with mental health issues.

On April 6,  it moves out of the local MIND offices and sets up at Community Base in Queens Road with Helen Jones leading the team.

Its board is led by Kat Marples and includes people with experience of LGBT mental health issues and others with experience of providing LGBT mental health services.

The Big Lottery Fund and the PCT have agreed that their funds be redirected to the new project and MIND will pass over to the new project the staff and the valuable reserves that MindOut had built up.

The project has funding sufficient for the year ahead and during that time it will be seeking new sources of funding to continue their work. It has reserves equivalent to a year’s running costs as a back up.

MindOut’s identity was threatened last summer when its parent body, MIND in Brighton & Hove, decided to split up the team and integrate their work with other services as part of a re-organisation plan. The loss of its identity as a team of LGBT people working for LGBT people was regarded by service users and staff alike as fatal to the project in the longer term.

The response from service users and the wider LGB&T communities was swift and impressive with interventions, both public and behind-the-scenes, from local LGBT community leaders, councillors including former chair of equalities Cllr Paul Elgood and local MP’s.

The new charity takes over the existing staff  and  volunteer team and the services from April 1, 2011.

A launch event will be held in September to promote the new service and to acknowledge the help and support given by so many people in different ways to make sure MindOut survived as an LGBT community project in Brighton & Hove.

The board of the new MindOut is acutely aware that the project owes its survival to the support shown by service users and local LGBT communities.

It plans to make sure that their input is always sought and valued.

A great start to independence has been made with MindOut being chosen by Stonewalll as their Community Group of the Year with an award worth £5,000, and the Rainbow Fund has made a grant of nearly £5,000 available to MindOut upon achieving independence.

MindOut has a team running the 2011 Brighton Marathon on April 10.

You can sponsor them at: www.everydayhero.co.uk/mindout

From 6th April 2011....
MindOut Registered Charity No. 1140098
Community Base, 113 Queens Road
Brighton BN1 3XG

01273 234000 (direct line number to be announced).