Are we doing enough to support mental health in Ireland? There is certainly a growing national openness around issues of mental health and mental ill health. However, this growing openness does not appear to extend to our government and many other leading politicians. What can be done to change this?
While the people of Ireland made their voices heard during this year’s election, we need to make a habit of doing this between elections also. Part of the reason that this tends not to happen is the lack of structures allowing people to come together to contribute to policy-making in Ireland. Myself and my friends, Owen, Laura and Gary, have developed a new social enterprise which aims to provide a space for people to come together in workshops to develop policies on specific topics, mental health for example. By publicising the ideas generated in these workshops, we can join together to develop these ideas further and push politicians to adopt our citizen-generated proposals.
We recently held a workshop on mental health policy to coincide with the visit of Bressie and Dr. Paul D’Alton to NUI Galway. The NUI Galway Psychological Society hosted a wonderful event where both Bressie and Dr. D’Alton spoke about the importance of prioritising mental health and empowering the people of Ireland, especially those who are currently marginalised. It was with this same spirit that we held our workshop earlier that day, where people from all walks of life came together to develop their ideas for policies that could better support the mental health of the people of Ireland.
Bressie and Dr. Paul D’Alton
Our workshop began with a brief introduction to current proposals for mental health policies in Ireland and a demonstration of how policies in all areas of government decision-making have the potential to impact mental health. While we encouraged participants to bring their own conceptualisation of mental health to the table, we felt it was important to discuss how mental health and mental ill health are two very separate things and that people can experience aspects of both at any one time. We also felt it was important to emphasise that mental health and the stigma surrounding it are inextricably linked to other forms of stigma and oppression relating to issues like gender, race, poverty, homelessness, and education.
After this our participants began to work together to develop ideas. Around the room there were areas of the wall dedicated to different areas of policy such as health, education and social services. Participants’ task was to imagine they were the government and to suggest policies across these different areas which would support the mental health of all of the citizens of Ireland. In just 45 minutes of interactive discussion and movement around the room, over 60 fantastic policies were developed. We then went through each policy to clarify them and elaborate upon them. This discussion sparked even further ideas – all of which will be detailed on our website and in a report we will make publicly available and put in the hands of every TD and Senator.
Finally, in order to select a set of ideas to present to the audience, Bressie and Dr. D’Alton later that evening, our participants individually voted to pick out the five ideas they felt were the most detailed, measurable, achievable, and relevant. After collating the votes from each participant, we had narrowed the set down to 12 ideas.
Here they are:
- Develop a programme to teach children about mental health and self-care
- Provide community mental health centres
- Set up a national information provision campaign backed by government
- Provide tax relief for companies who organise mental health campaigns
- Provide a hop-on, hop-off bus service in rural areas to connect people and reduce social isolation
- Introduce compulsory “mental health days”, 3-4 a year for employees
- Set up a campaign to make “being outside” cool
- Separate religion from the school system and spend the associated 5+ hours per week of school time teaching life skills e.g. mental health awareness, confidence, making friends, mindfulness
- Set up a “Road Safety Authority” model for Mental Health
- Introduce an advocacy programme where family members can get help for a person with mental illness
- Dedicate 2 weeks of RTE’s schedule to programmes on mental health
- Promote self-care for teachers
These ideas received a fantastically positive response from all at the event which was a great testament to the engagement of our participants. Dr. D’Alton described the set of ideas as “a blueprint for change” while Bressie remarked how the approach resonated with his own desire to ask and empower rather than tell people what should be done. If only our politicians could adopt such an attitude.
For more information check out KEY Ideas + Decisions which can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.
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