New funding secured to continue and expand Your Trust’s Blissful Bumps programme
Your Trust has been successful in its application for funding to continue and expand their Blissful Bumps programme, offering fortnightly creative and wellbeing sessions to help support pregnant people.
The Museums Association’s Health and Wellbeing in Museums Fund, funded by the Julia Rausing Foundation, has awarded the Rochdale charity £74,685 to expand the pilot project, which launched in April 2025, supporting maternal mental health through artist-led activity and wrap-around support from local maternity services.
The programme was designed linked to Greater Manchester’s Creative Health Strategy to support soon-to-be mums. Two in five women will experience mental health challenges during pregnancy (three in five for women from the global majority), and research demonstrates that early intervention improves health outcomes. In addition to this, creative well-being can help create long-term strategies for managing mental health.
From April to September 2025, Blissful Bumps sessions have delivered relaxed sessions with creative activity led by artists, alongside support from specialists including midwives and early years teams. Creative activities have included book-binding art journals, tie-dye baby grows, block-printed burping clothes and yoga.
Through the newly awarded funded, Your Trust are able to fund a new role to deliver the programme to more pregnant people across Rochdale, allowing a peri-post natal creative community to help design the sessions as they continue to grow. They will also support CPD for early years health care professionals and involve Touchstones’ rich art and heritage collections to inspire the creative activities.
Bryan Beresford, Community & Inclusion Manager at Touchstones says: “We’re thrilled to be selected as one of the grantees for the Museums Association’s Health & Wellbeing in Museums Fund. This opportunity aligns perfectly with the aims and objectives of our Blissful Bumps programme, enabling us to strengthen partnerships and continue our creative health work across the Borough. We’re excited to join a wider network of organisations in this funding round to assess impact, share learning, and support people through their pregnancy journeys with high-quality creative activities that improve wellbeing.”
Craig Smith, Health and Wellbeing in Museums Project Officer at the Museums Association says: “We are extremely pleased at The Museums Association to be supporting the continuation and development of just some of the groundbreaking health and wellbeing initiatives being led by UK museums.
Your Trust’s Blissful Bumps is a prime example of a programme which demonstrates excellence in this area, with strong evidence of impact to date alongside robust plans for the future. With generous support from the Julia Rausing Trust, The Health and Wellbeing in Museums Fund is providing not only funding, but also networking and learning dissemination opportunities so that the sector as a whole may benefit and strengthen the role museums play within a healthy and happy society.”
To find out more and register for a free place, visit yourtrustrochdale.co.uk/blissful-bumps/