Worthing Pride 2023 is supporting West Sussex Mind

We have been chosen as one of Worthing Pride’s official charity partners for 2023 along with Switchboard in Brighton & Hove. This means that for every ticket sold for Worthing Pride (7 and 8 July 2023), £2 is ringfenced to be shared equally between ourselves and Switchboard.

West Sussex Mind will use the funds raised from Worthing Pride to set up new face-to-face LGBTQIA+ peer support groups later this year. Our commitment to targeted support for LGBTQIA+ communities in Worthing and the surrounding areas follows research we conducted in winter 2022. The research showed that there was a need and desire for LGBTQIA+-focused mental health support among the community; and that many people felt that this was currently lacking in West Sussex.

Our research also found that stigma and discrimination around mental health were still prevalent for many people and that peer support – where people use their own lived experience of mental health to help each other – was seen as a means of challenging this and enabling people to feel more supported and less isolated.

As an official charity partner, we’ll be leading the Worthing Pride parade on Saturday 8 July and we are inviting people in the community, LGBTQIA+ allies, our staff, service users, trustees and volunteers to join us. We’ll have our staff on hand to chat to people about our support on the evening of Friday 7 July and all day Saturday 8 July – and there will be a quiet zone where people can talk to our staff about their mental health if they want to.

Our CEO Kerrin Page said: "We are delighted to have been chosen as a charity for Worthing Pride 2023 and it’s an honour to be at the forefront of this amazing celebration of the LGBTQIA+ community. We recognise that people who identify as LGBTQIA+ can sometimes face barriers to getting support with their mental health and we look forward to using the funds raised at Worthing Pride to develop much-needed peer support groups that will reduce stigma and isolation.”

Gary Richardson, creative director of Worthing Pride, said: “For a long time, there has been a lack of safe spaces for LGBTQIA+ people to talk and support each other with their mental well-being. We are excited to help fund West Sussex Mind’s new peer support groups, as we believe they will help reduce feelings of isolation and exclusion in our community and have a positive impact on people’s mental health in the long term.”

We will be fundraising throughout the event and will keep everyone up to date with the progress of our new peer support groups.