ACT Mental Health Month 2024

Mentally Healthy Community Award (Individual)
This award category recognises individuals, groups or organisations who have made a significant contribution using preventative approaches to improving the mental health and wellbeing of our community.

Innovative Person-Centred Supports Award
This award recognises individuals, groups or organisations who have made a significant contribution to the delivery of innovative person-centred supports to people who experience mental health concerns.

Research Evaluation Award
This award category recognises an individual researcher, piece of research or project that has advanced and/or is working towards improvements, innovation and evidence-informed practice in mental health.

Mental Health Carer Award
This award category recognises unpaid carers (family or friends) of people who experience mental health concerns. It is designed to show appreciation for the contribution carers can make to the wellbeing of consumers, advocating on their behalf and often being the primary or only support person.

Community Connection Through Recovery Award
This award category celebrates individuals with lived experience of a mental health condition whose mental health recovery journey has led them to become more involved in their community.

Leadership Through Lived Experience Award: Consumer
This award recognises an individual with lived experience of mental health conditions who has made an outstanding contribution to advocacy and social change benefiting people with lived experience. This can relate to a specific program the consumer has initiated/coordinated or ongoing work in this area.

Sponsored by the ACT Mental Health Consumer Network:

Lived Experience Ally Recognition Award (Individual)
Lived Experience Ally Recognition Award (Group)
This award recognises an individual or organisation with a longstanding and exceptional contribution to mental health consumers and consumer-centred mental health services in the ACT. It acknowledges those who work collaboratively with consumers to achieve positive change.

Consumer Small Business Grant
The Consumer Small Business Grant is designed to support consumers by offering financial and business support to launch or grow their small businesses. This grant is made possible through a partnership between ACT Mental Health Consumer Network, which provides funding of up to $5,000, and Collective Wisdom, which offers essential business support and guidance at a value of $6,300. By nurturing entrepreneurial spirit, this initiative aims to promote independence and wellbeing for consumers working to achieve their career goals.

ACT Mental Health Consumer Network Scholarship 
These scholarships (worth up to $500 a year to a maximum of $2,000 in total) recognise mental health consumers who are furthering their education. They are intended to cover general education expenses such as computers, course texts and course fees.

Rufus Scholarship
Established in December 2019 by a private donor, this Scholarship provides an annual grant of up to $600 to support a mental health consumer who would not otherwise have the financial means to do so to further or continue their education.

David Perrin Award
The award is presented in memory of David Perrin, an individual with multiple disabilities who made his mark in mental health services and was an inspiration to all who knew him. It recognises a mental health consumer who lives an independent and self-determined life beyond what they may have expected after diagnosis.