Funding boost to expand men's mental health group

A men's mental health group in Stratford-upon-Avon has been given a £40,000 grant to expand its work, a year after it first began.

The Wild Wood Connection Project meets weekly and sees men gather in woodland around a campfire so they can talk openly about their struggles.

The group founder, Jonathan Toney, says the money is more than they could have hoped for when they put the bid in.

"It's an unbelievable amount of money. If I'm quite honest, it was an absolute dream sort of wish list. We submitted it and thought we might get a little bit of it and we got everything."

The funding has been awarded to the group by the Stratford Town Trust.

It will help pay running costs as well as outreach work to actively try to find more men who need their support.

GP services in Stratford and doctors at Stratford Hospital can also now refer people to the group through social prescribing.

Toney says helping people with their problems early, before they escalate, is where the group's strength lies.

"Anything that is sort of a low-level mental health issue, say it's like isolation or divorce, things like that can be helped."

He added: "It's when you've been left and you're on the waiting list for the NHS for two years, suddenly it's like, oh okay, well now you've used alcohol for two years and now you're an alcoholic or it just it just snowballs. So, we're hopefully a good solution and a first good pit stop."

The group was set up in May 2025 and Toney admitted he didn't know if it would be something people would be interested in.

"One guy turned up on the first day, and he just lost his dad. We had a great conversation and he came back the next week and was just like 'oh I've brought a couple of friends with me', and it just grew organically from there."

They now meet every Monday in woodland at Welcombe Hills, supported by Stratford-on-Avon District Council and Warwickshire Wildlife Trust, which allowed the group to use the land for free.

Toney hopes this new funding will provide a guarantee for the future of the group.

"It's just going to make such a difference. The whole of last year was on a shoestring and what we're able to achieve, just with that amount of money, I can't even begin to imagine the growth that we're going to be experience in 2026 and 2027."

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