Feel Good Friday For Feeling Funny
We've got some Feel Good Friday news to get this weekend off to a smashing-ly splendid start!
We've been awarded a whopping £56,000 from the Liverpool One Foundation to expand and develop our cornerstone programme Feeling Funny to work with young people (11 - 19) across the Liverpool City Region with the main aim of improving their mental health and wellbeing and take the steps to breaking down the barriers of stigma surrounding mental illness.
Working towards our ethos of Creating Happier, Healthier People, we will be working with professional comedians and creative practitioners to tackle the obstacles young people face in their lives by emphasising the importance of nurturing emotional and social well being.
Our Feeling Funny Youth programme will include:
- 6 week comedy wellbeing courses - Participants will learn to write and perform their own short stand-up comedy routines to be performed in front of an invited audience. Courses enable young people to develop new friendships, feel comfortable discussing taboo topics freely in a friendly, non-judgemental setting and work to improve their mental health and wellbeing.
- Well Funny events: We'll be working alongside groups of up to 30 young people in interactive workshops that explore the use of humour as a tool to improve our personal resilience
- Feeling Funny Youth Club: A monthly club will be knocking at your doors with graduates of the Feeling Funny programme continue to meet with their peers and develop their comedic skills and confidence to support their wellbeing. And that's not all! Over the course of the programme we will be recruiting Feeling Funny Champions to act as advocates for the programme, encouraging people in their local communities to work together to change attitudes towards mental health in the region. Alongside this we'll also will be producing a high-profile event (Feeling Funny showcase) for the Liverpool Comedy Festival managed and curated by the young people themselves. To top it all off we'll be creating wellbeing toolkits for all schools and community organisations we work alongside to continue their impact towards improving wellbeing in the area.
*annnnd breathes* It's going to be a busy three years!
We feel that the Feeling Funny programme is the perfect way to tackle poor mental wellbeing in the area. We use comedy, humour and laughter as a key tool to tackling the stigma and fear of accessing clincial therapies and opening the doors to increasing awareness of mental illness through our participants stories. Like they say, laughter is the best medicine! (pssst it's scientifically proven)
We're incredibly excited to get the ball rolling on our Feeling Funny Youth programme and already have a cohort of schools and community organisations on board to help improve the mental health and wellbeing of young people across the region. Stay tuned for updates, pictures, videos and blogs by the young people themselves !
Interested in being a part of the programme or want to know more about our mental health and wellbeing programmes for young people and adults, get in touch today by emailing charlene@thecomedytrust.com or give us a call on 0151 702 5893
