The impact of Bolton Manbassadors

From an idea in a shed to winning awards: here's the Bolton Manbassadors story so far... (our Impact Report for 2022 to 2023)

The Bolton Manbassadors project- the idea for which was developed in a shed during the Covid pandemic- reaches out to men, engages with them and offers ‘meaningful conversations’- a simple intervention of informal, bite-sized support on a very local level to tackle high rates of male suicide and mental health issues.

The project attempts to address high rates of male suicide and mental health issues across Bolton by taking a different approach to reaching out to men and offering them the opportunity to access the support for issues that impact on their mental health and wellbeing. The project acts as a mental health prevention solution by targeting men unknown to statutory services.

We did not envisage the scale of impact and demand the project would have across Bolton.

After the success of the initial pilot, in March 2022, £25K of funding from Bolton Public Health enabled the project to continue for a further 12 months with a dedicated part-time staff resource to meet the demand of the project.

Now, 18 months on, Bolton Manbassadors has grown from strength to strength. The volunteering contribution from local 'Manbassadors’ recruited onto the project was recognised at Bolton at Home’s Stars of the Community Awards in June 2022, winning the ‘Health and Wellbeing Star' at the ceremony.

And in December 2022, Bolton Manbassadors (alongside our partners at Maxmedia Communications Ltd.) won ‘Campaign of the Year’ at the UK Housing Awards.

You can download the full 2022 to 2023 Impact Report and see some of our headline figures below.

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Download the Bolton Manbassadors Impact Report Summary [pdf] 1MB