What we did:

Mr Hastings and St Leonards was a three-year initiative funded by East Sussex County Council to tackle the complex issue of falling male life expectancy in Hastings, which had become significantly lower than the national average. Hosted by Hastings Voluntary Action and led by local men, the project aimed to move beyond traditional time-limited interventions by establishing a self-sustaining ‘social movement’ for men’s health and wellbeing. Grounded in Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) principles, the movement sought to mobilise local men with lived experience to work in true partnership with services and community groups, creating a more coordinated, system-wide approach to men’s health and wellbeing.

How we did it:

Apteligen acted as the independent evaluation partner, adopting a mixed-methods approach to understand ‘what works’ and to capture the movement’s evolving impact. Our methodology focused on capturing deep experiential insights and included:

• Deploying an online community survey and attending key project activities, such as the Men Don’t Talk? film screenings and theatre productions, to gather real-time feedback.

• Building an evidence-based Theory of Change to align objectives and activities with intended outcomes.

• Conducting over 35 in-depth interviews and informal discussions with participating men and external system stakeholders.

• Utilising reflective diaries and ‘ripple effect’ mapping workshops to track the spread of the movement’s influence.

• Applying the ‘Most Significant Change’ methodology to analyse personal accounts of transformation and social change.

What the project achieved:

The evaluation demonstrated that the movement successfully established a powerful brand and identity, acting as a catalyst for thousands of positive conversations about male mental health and help-seeking behaviours. Key outputs included a documentary film, a podcast series, and the Monologues of Men stage production, all of which drew on the lived experience and assets of local men to challenge traditional stereotypes. The project also facilitated early system-level shifts, such as the creation of a new men-specific bereavement group at a local hospice.

Crucially, the movement has formalised its legacy by establishing the Men’s Room Hastings & St Leonards CIC, an independent entity that will continue to grow the movement. Our recommendations highlight that by further deepening strategic alliances with statutory services, leveraging national platforms like the ‘Baton of Hope’ tour, and maintaining its core peer-led ethos, the movement is uniquely positioned to achieve long-term, population-level improvements in men’s health.

Other projects