Thursday 16th January, 2020.

Action Mental Health was delighted to host the All Party Group on Suicide Prevention as they met to discuss specific issues facing rural communities in Northern Ireland.

The meeting was hosted at Action Mental Health’s New Horizons site in Fermanagh. As well as the MLAs, a large number of organisations were represented alongside AMH clients and individuals from the local community.

Those present heard presentations from Professor Gerry Leavey from Ulster University, Michael Mowen from Oak Healthy Living Centre and Mary Friel from British Red Cross.

Before leaving, the MLAs and representatives from the Public Health Agency (PHA) took the opportunity to see and take part in one of the current PHA funded art projects that AMH clients are working on – a very special environmental themed sculpture.

The AMH New Horizons activities the client participates in are operated through the “Working it Out” project, which is part-funded through the Northern Ireland European Social Fund Programme 2014-2020, the Department for the Economy and the five NI Health & Social Care Trusts.

Monday, January 20 heralds the annual day of the year branded ‘Blue Monday’. The dreariest day of the week earned that especially negative moniker for a number of reasons, not only for the come down from the festive season but also for the financial repercussions of the previous month’s indulgence.

Whatever the reason, many of us can feel down in the dark and dismal days of January. In the fight against low-mood, Action Mental Health espouses the Five Ways to Well-Being, developed by the New Economics Foundation.

The Five Ways provide five key steps that you can take as your mental ‘five-a-day’ to contribute to your overall well-being. Don’t worry, you don’t need to take these steps alone – you may even find them more enjoyable with your colleagues and family. These steps remind us to:

•          Connect – with the people around you, whether your family, friends, colleagues and neighbours at home, work or in your local community

•          Be Active – whether you prefer walking or running, cycling, playing a game, gardening or dancing, be active, because exercising makes you feel good.

•          Take Notice -stop, pause, or take a moment to look around you now and take notice of the beautiful, new, unusual or extraordinary things in your everyday life

•          Keep Learning – learning new things is enjoyable and will make you more confident, boost your self-esteem and improve your overall well-being

•          Give – making a conscious decision to do something for others improves our mental health and allows us to appreciate the good in ourselves and others.

Action for Happiness has produced a Happy New Year Calendar for January 2020 which not only recommends a positive step for combatting Blue Monday – getting a proper night’s sleep – it also gives daily suggestions to help you make every day of the month a bit happier.

On Sunday, January 19, the calendar prompts you to get in touch with an old friend you miss, so perhaps a reunion with a long lost friend will stand you in happier stead to face the next day. And instead of wallowing in the winter doldrums why not channel your energy into Action for Happiness’s January 21^st  tip – to ‘take a small step towards an important goal’.

Whether that’s something to promote better physical health or emotional well-being, or a financial or creative goal, why not do whatever it is that has you daydreaming every other day of the year!

Check out www.actionforhappiness.org to see what else you can do to make January a better month.

Action Mental Health is kicking off 2020 with the launch of a new programme dedicated to young people aged 18 to 25.

AMH will today launch its new SPEER service, established in conjunction with Youth Action, offering young people the chance to develop personally and enhance their life choices.

SPEER, a name chosen by the young people themselves, stands for Supportive, Positivity, Equality, Empathy and Respect, ideals they believed should be used to describe the programme.

The main aim of the SPEER programme is to bring together young people aged 18-25 to help enhance and develop their confidence, self-esteem and social interaction through fun activities and accredited training.

Clients of SPEER will be given the opportunity to also undertake courses such as OCN level 2 in Teamwork Skills and OCN level 2 Employability.

Similar to Action Mental Health’s young people’s programmes, Evolve at New Horizons Antrim and Boost, based at New Horizons Fermanagh and Foyle, SPEER will be linked to New Horizons Derriaghy but will be based at the Bridge Community Centre in Lisburn.

Sessions will take place every Wednesday from 11am to 3.30pm, when young people will get the chance to make new friendships with their contemporaries who understand what it is like to live with mental health issues like anxiety or depression.

This projects is offered through AMH New Horizons which are part-funded through the Northern Ireland European Social Fund Programme 2014-2020, the Department for the Economy and the five NI Health & Social Care Trusts.

One young woman who attends Evolve said that as a young person with mental health issues it was hard for her to make friends and to socialise.

“I have met people who have had similar life experiences and have made new friends. Evolve is not all about completing training, but we also go on trips out and do fun activities. We visited Coke-a Cola factory, had a day out at Belfast Christmas Market, cannoed on Lough Neagh and had trips to the cinema.  

“Overall, Action Mental Health is a great support to me. The staff are very understanding and show interest in all clients’ well-being.”

Another young woman who attends Evolve agreed, stating it has been a great lifeline to her when she felt very isolated.

“We do things to build confidence and it’s kind of like team-building and there’s a great atmosphere. The other people in the group understand, because we have all been through similar situations.

“We recently went to an escape room and it was great fun. I would never have done anything like this myself – I would’ve ended up freaking out or something but doing something like this with Evolve really helps you challenge yourself and I’m sure the rest of the group must feel the same,” she said.

“You are never judged if you have a bit of a melt down and you might have to leave for a bit. You can just come back when you are ready and there’s no walk of shame back in, like if it happened at school or work or something.”

Chief Executive of Action Mental Health, David Babington said: “We are delighted to be offering a new branch of our growing services dedicated especially for young people experiencing mental health issues.

“Research has shown that approximately 20% of young people in Northern Ireland are suffering significant mental health problems by the time they are 18 and rates of mental ill-health are estimated to be 25% higher than in other parts of the UK.

“Good mental health is all about feeling positive about yourself, being able to cope with life and the challenges it brings and being able to form and keep relationships, and places like SPEER – like AMH’s Evolve and Boost – are hubs where these ideals are promoted and supported by specialist staff.”

Clients at Action Mental Health’s New Horizons Foyle are ringing in the new year with a host of new qualifications which will herald new beginnings for people who have experienced periods of mental ill health.

Some 75 clients will receive certificates for a variety of vocational, personal development and employability courses, during a special presentation event on Tuesday, January 14.

Action Mental Health New Horizons nine services across Northern Ireland offer clients a comprehensive programme of specialist training courses, tailoring programmes to suit individuals’ personal needs.

These projects are offered through the “Working it Out” project, which is part-funded through the Northern Ireland European Social Fund Programme 2014-2020, the Department for the Economy and the five NI Health & Social Care Trusts.

A number of local public officials will join the celebrations, including a host of employers who will also receive special awards and certificates for their continued support of the charity. Brian McGarvey, Assistant Director of Adult Mental Health Services, Western Trust, will officiate during the event.

Invited guests will also hear from a number of clients who will relate their personal journeys through New Horizons, including some who are moving on to employment and further training.

The event serves as an opener for a host of events planned for clients at the North West service this year.

Chief Executive of Action Mental Health, David Babington said: “We are delighted for our clients who have accomplished a number of goals that many of them would never have imagined they could have achieved when they first entered New Horizons.

“Many clients are very apprehensive when they start, but as feedback attests over and over again, they quickly feel the warmth of the welcome from our specialist, empathetic staff. They make new friends among people who understand just how they feel, and soon they are completing valuable and enjoyable courses which will equip them with both valuable life skills and often, valued employment.”

The AMH New Horizons activities the client participates in are operated through the “Working it Out” project, which is part-funded through the Northern Ireland European Social Fund Programme 2014-2020, the Department for the Economy and the five NI Health & Social Care Trusts.

Action Mental Health welcomes the fact that mental health has been identified as a specific area of focus within the New Decade, New Approach document. We do however have concerns that the commitments remain vague.

Northern Ireland already has a draft Mental Health Action Plan that is resource neutral and is focused on bringing together decisions, already taken. The draft Action Plan has a target for a 10 year Mental Health Strategy, but this in itself needs resources to develop it, aside from the funds needed to adequately deliver it in a way that creates meaningful change to mental health services across Northern Ireland.

It is also vital that funds are secured to deliver the recently published Protect Life 2 strategy for Suicide Prevention.

We repeat our call for a Mental Health Champion to be put in place, someone with the relevant skills, experience and most importantly powers to ensure that we achieve parity for mental health in Northern Ireland.

As always the detail will be key, however we implore our local parties to get back into Government so that we can start taking these vital discussions forward and make real and meaningful improvements to mental health services for the people who need them most.

Action Mental Health’s emotional well-being and resilience building services for children have been supported by £208,000, raised by Danske Bank staff and customers.

Customers and employees have all played a vital role in raising the amazing total during a mutually beneficial partnership over the past three years.

The partnership means over 5,000 NI children and 800 parents and teachers will have benefited from the charity’s Healthy Me programme for children, which does not receive any public funding.

Danske Bank selected Action Mental Health as its charity partner back in 2017 with the objective of raising awareness of mental health and money for the charity’s Healthy Me programme, which aims to promote positive mental health and social and emotional wellbeing in 8-11 year olds.

The programme, which is delivered in Northern Ireland primary schools, explores emotional and mental health, healthy lifestyle choices, and pathways to effective support through imaginative and interactive play and song.

Jonathan Smyth, Fundraising & Communications Manager at Action Mental Health said: “The impact of Danske Bank’s partnership has been phenomenal. Thanks to the incredible fundraising efforts, we will have reached over 5,000 primary school children with our Healthy Me programme.

“We would like to offer our sincere and heartfelt thanks on behalf of everyone who has benefited. The positive impact on the children supported will be felt for years to come.”

As well as fundraising, the partnership has involved education, awareness, and practical and skills-based volunteering, such as Danske employees delivering budgeting sessions to Action Mental Health clients.

Richard Caldwell, Managing Director of Personal Banking & Small Business at Danske Bank added:

“The support for Action Mental Health right across our business has been incredible. Employees have completed all sorts of personal and team fundraising activities – from abseils, zip lines, trekking, marathon running and dragon boat racing, to murder mystery evenings, quizzes and coffee mornings – all to raise funds for Healthy Me.

“With the rates of mental illness in Northern Ireland higher than anywhere else in the United Kingdom, there is a clear need for early intervention and education programmes like Healthy Me. We believe that through investing in the mental health of today’s children, we can help address the issue for future generations, and it’s been a real privilege to support Action Mental Health do just that.

“We would like to thank our colleagues and customers for the generosity they have shown over the last three years.”

Action Mental Health is gearing up for a very busy 2020 with a range of significant new developments and projects.

One of those is Menhir – like an Alexa, Siri or Google Assistant for mental health. More used to giving us weather or traffic updates, Menhir’s artificial intelligence (AI) will be employed to help people’s mental health and well-being.

Menhir is being spearheaded by a collaborative team from Northern Ireland – including Action Mental Health and Ulster University – England, Germany, Italy and Spain.

It is a four-year Research & Development project which aims to identify people at risk of mental ill health and self-harm.

Research is currently ongoing into the analysis of conversational speech, plus emotional and perceptual analysis, to enable the system to identify the mood of a person through interactive conversations.

The system will ask questions of the user, with its inbuilt AI being equipped to gauge and detect emotions through a person’s tone of voice and speech patterns. It will also seek out key risk words for those at particular risk of self-harm, then make an analysis from this data.

If, through all this, a person is deemed at risk, the system will raise a red flag for action. For example, if a client of Action Mental Health, was deemed at risk of self-harm, their key worker would be able to address their issues, and encourage them to seek professional help.

Action Mental Health’s role, in this, the first stage of the project, is to support the clients engaged in the Menhir research. AMH will provide the advice and guidance for Menhir researchers by recruiting people from among clients and those from New Life Counselling.

NLC counsellors will then carry out interviews and will record and analyse the interviews – assessing the language used and the emotions conveyed through their speech in speaking about their mental health.

This data will help to inform the IT professionals in Menhir to develop the artificial intelligence behind the AI device that people will have in their homes.

For further information visit Menhir’s website http://menhir-project.eu/index.php/about/

A troupe of loyal Action Mental Health staff have been rewarded for their dedication to the charity by receiving long-service awards.

Fulfilling a variety of roles across Action Mental Health, the group includes Roslyn Young, who joined the charity 25 years ago. Roslyn is an Employment Officer with AMH New Horizons and is based at New Horizons Newry and Mourne.

Fellow Newry and Mourne colleague, Project Administrator, Andrea McCaul received her 15-year long-service award in recognition of her time employed with the charity. The pair recently received their long-service awards from Peter Fitsimmons, chairman of Action Mental Health

Conferring the awards, Mr Fitzsimmons said the other long-standing personnel have provided excellent support for AMH clients.

“They are passionate about supporting initiatives to improve mental health and well-being in our community,” he added.

Other staff members who have demonstrated similar longevity of 15 years with Action Mental Health include Jenny Lyness, Skills Coach with AMH New Horizons Belfast; Catherine Clarson and Alan Telford, both Administrative Officers at AMH Central; Alison Reid, Client Development Co-ordinator and John Sim, Skills Coach, both from New Horizons Craigavon and Banbridge;

Leona Wright, Project Administrator in New Horizons Foyle and Aileen McClenaghan, Skills Coach in AMH Promote, also received their 15-year long-service awards.