Grants of up to £25,000 over 12 months are available to regional and national charities across the UK with an annual income of under £20 million that are helping children and young people recover from Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and parents affected by ACEs, mental illness or addiction.
The James Tudor Foundation's Mental Health Grant programme, which will next open to applications at the start of November 2026, is designed to support UK registered charities operating at a regional or national level that are helping children and young people recovering from Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and parents affected by ACEs, mental illness or addiction.
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are defined as “potentially traumatic events or chronic stressors that occur before the age of 18 and are uncontrollable to the child”. They include the following:
- Sexual abuse
- Physical abuse or neglect
- Emotional abuse or neglect
- Living in a household where there is domestic violence
- Living with a parent with substance abuse
- Living with a parent who has a mental illness
- Losing a parent through death, abandonment, or divorce, and/or
- Having a parent in prison
Grants of up to £25,000 over 12-months (occasionally for up to 3 years), with no matched funding requirement, are available for evidence-based, trauma-informed interventions designed to overcome and prevent the trauma of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). The programme works on several levels, supporting both children and young people affected by ACEs, as well as supporting parents to help break the cycle of trauma across generations. The Foundation’s two areas of support are:
- Support for children and young people - under this focus, the Foundation wants to partner with charities that solely support children and young people who have suffered one or more ACEs, and they do so through evidence-based, trauma-informed therapies, and
- Support for parents - under this focus, the Foundation wants to partner with specialist charities that solely focus on supporting parents and complex family challenges.
Organisations that are working either regionally or nationally and can meet the following criteria are eligible to apply:
- Have as their key focus preventing and/or reducing the impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) – helping children and young people, and parents and caregivers – see the definition of ACEs above.
- Use trauma-informed approaches and evidence-based interventions.
- Are actively patient led in shaping, running, and improving their services.
- Can demonstrate real impact through their own evaluations or independent research, and
- Have an annual income of less than £20 million and at least 5 years’ audited or independently examined accounts.
Funding is not available for:
- Charities that provide some support for children and young people who have experienced ACEs, but this is not their sole focus.
- Charities whose sole focus is supporting children and young people who have experienced ACEs, but through the provision of sport and leisure activities, nature based activities, mentoring, befriending, peer support, etc.
- Charities that support adults who have experienced ACEs but do not have a specialist programme for parents to help break the intergenerational cycle of trauma and abuse.
- General counselling charities.
- General youth support and wellbeing charities.
- Homelessness charities.
- Hospice (although hospices can apply to the Foundation’s Hospice Care programme).
- Refugee/asylum seeker charities (even if they provide mental health programmes to overcome trauma and abuse)
- School (including Special Educational Needs (SEN) schools), or
- Volunteer-run charities.
For eligible charities, the following services or project types are eligible for support:
- Befriending
- Drama / Storytelling
- Entertainment activities
- General mental wellbeing support
- General parenting advice
- Leisure activities
- Mentoring
- Music
- Nature based activities
- Social care programmes
- Sports based activities, or
- Wellbeing activities
To apply, charities should:
- Check their eligibility using the Eligibility Checker on the Foundation’s website.
- If you are eligible, submit a brief Expression of Interest via the Foundation’s online application platform (applicants will be directed to the form once they have successfully completed the Eligibility Checker).
- Requests that matches the programme’s funding priorities, and the Foundation’s assessment is that it has at least a 75% chance of being awarded a grant, will be invited to submit a Full Application.
The timeline for the June 2027 Board meeting is:
- Expressions of Interest (EOI) open: 02/11/2026
- EOI deadline: 11/12/2026 (17:00hrs)
- Full Application invitations will be sent in the w/c 15/02/2027
- Full Application submission deadline: 26/03/2027 (17:00hrs)
- Full Applications shortlisting: w/c 19/04/2027
- Full Application outcomes: w/c 21/06/2027
Further information about the Mental Health Grant programme is available on the Foundation’s website.