ZGBTST held two Mental Health Action Days in Kilrea on 5th October and Ballymoney on 10th October in response to an urgent concern about the mental health of their local communities.
The reasons for holding these events are to gather thoughts, opinions and recommendations from those within the communities to put a strategic mental health plan into ACTION in both areas! We wanted to hear the voices of the local people, to enable us to meet the direct needs of those who live there!
Our Aims
- Understand the current community situation within the town
- Gain knowledge from those who reside within the town to identify the mental health needs and what an intervention model should look like for them.
- Listen to the concerns of the community, the personal experiences they are having within the services and how these can be made better.
Those bereaved by suicide, Samaritan volunteers, a professional counsellor and a local party member, with a high interest in the wellbeing of the community attended the evenings.
We discussed the current mental health provision in the area, spoke to community members directly about their experience of mental health provision and discussed the possible causes of mental health deterioration, increase in referrals and recent suicides in the towns.
Results
We now hope to be able to implement a crisis intervention model of mental health support available for the towns in which action days have taken place. This support will be tailored to the specific needs identified with the overarching mission being the increase of access to support.
ZGBTST concern for the communities was well received. We have a potential plan for Community Assisted Crisis, involving providing training and assistance to volunteers within the community to become peer support drop-in facilitators or the provision of a half day counsellor and half day mentor.
