Big Lottery award celebrated on BBC Radio Somerset

Evolve Music has received £10,000 of National Lottery funding to deliver musical activities for new dads and their young children!

Developed in partnership with a mental health charity, Dads Rock aims to help dads who are struggling with their mental health or who are supporting a partner with perinatal depression, providing opportunities for new dads to gather together to socialise and develop peer support networks. Dads Rock is built around significant evidence that music can play a valuable role in supporting mental health, wellbeing and caregiver-child attachment.

The grant from The National Lottery Community Fund, the largest community funder in the UK, will enable us to continue its musical activities to help new dads to improve their communication, confidence and self-esteem after the life changing experience of becoming a parent. It will also help the project to fill a gap in provision for men who are underserved when it comes to opportunities to build their own parental communities and support networks, with baby and toddler activities traditionally targeting mums or having a higher proportion of mums attending

Annette Burghes, Executive Director at Evolve Music, said: “Evolve Music is delighted to have secured funding from The National Lottery Community Fund for Dads Rock in Bath and send a huge thank you to the National Lottery players for making this happen.”

Juliet Williams, Head of Funding for the South West at The National Lottery Community Fund, said: “Thanks to National Lottery players and the hard work and dedication of local groups and projects such as Evolve Music, this funding will make a huge difference to people’s lives across the South West. The quality of applications we receive speaks volumes of the care and ingenuity of local people – we’re delighted that our grants are being used to support great projects that strengthen communities and improve lives in our region in many ways.”

We were delighted to be able to be invited to share the good news about this work with listeners at BBC Radio Somerset on 23rd September – have a listen here (approximately 1 hour 50 minutes in) https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0gc4w7w