A PEER support project working with mums with low to moderate mental health issues should be ready to start in Bradford this September.

The project will be the first to come from a £49 million lottery grant awarded to the city last June to come up with ideas to give its children a better start in life and for those new schemes to be led by volunteers.

Almost one year into the funding and Better Start Bradford's new director Michaela Howell, 49, says the people involved in the initiative have been working hard behind the scenes to start delivering projects that will help children be loved and feel secure through their relationships with parents and carers - as well as run activities and initiatives to improve children’s communications, help them be more active and eat better.

Better Start Bradford's first project will be working with mums five months before the birth of their child and one month after - and will be run by trained volunteers.

Funding from the lottery is to be spent over ten years working with families in some of the city's most deprived areas of Bowling and Barkerend, Bradford Moor, and Little Horton, focusing on about 20,000 children, from before birth to three-years-old.

Within the three wards - where about 1,430 babies are born each year - there are high rates of infant mortality and child poverty, low school readiness, and high rates of domestic violence and child protection orders.

The project led by Bradford Trident is a partnership with Bradford Council, the NHS, and West Yorkshire Police and is also working alongside the Born in Bradford study, which has been following 13,500 babies since 2007.

Thanks to added financial commitment from partner agencies the £49 million was boosted to £53 million, said Ms Howell.

"We have spent the last year setting up the programme. We had to make sure the foundations were in place before we started delivering," she added.

A governance board has been set up including parents, community representatives, people who have invested and strategic leaders to become the ultimate decision-making body.

Strategies are also being put in place to carefully evaluate and monitor any of the initiative's projects to make sure they are effective and to be able to make changes if needed, said Ms Howell.

A second project will see a small team of midwives working intensively with some mums piloting personalised care and Better Start Bradford is also integrated into the Council's New Deal approach which has been gathering people’s views on how Council services should be delivered in the light of the authority having to cut its spending by more than £170 million since 2011and a further £130m of savings being forecast between now and 2020.