A Tyneside charity run by women and dedicated to improving women’s mental health has won a prestigious national award for its achievements. ‘The judging panel was particularly impressed by the charity’s determination to always do better, as well as its commitment to diversity and meeting the varying needs of the women it is here to help.’

Tyneside Women’s Health has beaten more than 400 organisations from all over the UK to be one of the 10 winners of the 2017 GSK IMPACT Awards, a national award that recognises excellence in charities improving health and well-being in their communities. The charity will receive £30,000 in funding as part of its prize, as well as expert support and development from The King’s Fund.

Tyneside Women’s Health was established in 1985 to provide mental health support to women in a women-only environment. It runs a range of services for local women, including counselling, support groups, and creative and therapeutic activities.

At least one person in four in the UK will experience a mental health problem each year. As well as the impact this has on people’s lives, it has been estimated that the annual economic cost of mental ill health totals £105 billion in England. Mental ill health is a particular challenge for Newcastle and Gateshead, which has a higher than average rate of anti-depressant prescribing.

Although a small organisation, Tyneside Women’s Health has a large reach in the local community and worked with more than 550 women last year. It runs two centres in Gateshead and Newcastle, and recently opened a café in its Newcastle centre to give women affected by mental health issues a route into paid work.

With about a quarter of the women it helps having experienced domestic abuse, its Undoing the Damage of Domestic Abuse programme focuses on addressing the mental health needs of survivors of domestic violence. Tyneside Women’s Health also runs an annual White Ribbon event to highlight this problem and offers advice to local employers on how best to support staff who are victims of abuse.

Katie Pinnock, Director of UK and Ireland Charitable Partnerships at GSK, said: ‘Tyneside Women’s Health is a great example of a small, dynamic charity providing valuable health and wellbeing services for the local community. Many women will experience poor mental health at some point in their lives and charities like Tyneside Women’s Health play an important role in helping to boost vulnerable women’s mental health and emotional wellbeing.

Elaine Slater, Chief Executive of Tyneside Women’s Health, said: ‘We are delighted to have received a GSK IMPACT Award. For a relatively small, local charity this is a huge accolade for us and testament to the impact we have on the lives of the women we support and the wider communities we operate in.’

‘We’re incredibly excited to be working alongside GSK and The King’s Fund over the coming months and years to develop as an organisation and to raise awareness of our work.’

Part of the award enabled Tyneside Women’s Health to work with Toucan Productions who have made a four minute film to showcase the work of the organisation.  The film can be viewed online at

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cycikLlVEyI