Barnwood Trust

Who we are

We work together with the people of Gloucestershire to bring the county closer together, exploding myths about disability and mental health. By sparking new community connections, sharing ideas and providing grants, we enable people to shape where they live and discover new opportunities. 

Barnwood Trust has a long history. Our roots go back to the late 18th century, when a group of people came together to build a new mental health hospital in Gloucestershire.

Today, Barnwood Trust is a charitable foundation which draws its income from a portfolio of investments. We are not a fundraising charity. As a financially independent organisation, Barnwood uses its funds to benefit disabled people and people with mental health conditions in Gloucestershire.

Our culture and values

We join with the people, communities and organisations in Gloucestershire’s disability and mental health movement.

We want to see change happen so that disabled people and people with mental health conditions have choice of opportunities, access their rights, and are included where they live.

Opportunity

We want disabled people and people with mental health conditions across Gloucestershire to have choice of opportunities that meet their hopes and passions.

Inclusion

We want disabled people and people with mental health conditions across Gloucestershire to be included and involved in their communities and the places they live.

Rights

We want disabled people and people with mental health conditions across Gloucestershire to access their rights and see positive change on disability issues.

Equality, diversity and inclusion policy

We want to make sure that we are reaching all disabled people and people with mental health conditions, including people and communities of colour in our county.

We love working in and for this county, but we must work for all of it. To fully deliver our mission, our work needs to be shaped by people from all communities. Barnwood Trust needs to be an anti-racist organisation – a safer place for people of colour. To do this we need to improve both our relationships and our practices.

Changing our relationships

As an organisation, we need to examine and own our individual biases and prejudices. We have begun a long-term organisational development programme to improve our self-awareness and ability to become anti-racist.

We understand that anti-racism is not just about ‘increasing diversity’  it is about access, opportunity, and attitude. We need to increase opportunities and improve ways for people of colour to work alongside us and to be involved in all our activities.

Changing how we work

Barnwood holds resources – money, capacity, knowledge, and connections. We need expertise to direct those resources towards racial justice for disabled people of colour and people of colour with mental health conditions.

We are creating a new, dedicated role for a person of colour to join our staff team to influence what we do next. We are recruiting new members of the Board of Trustees, which has overall responsibility for what the Trust does. We are also growing a membership scheme for people to influence our work and get involved in projects with us.