Action Mental Health has signed an open letter with 100 other charities, community groups and academics calling for a new Executive to be formed to tackle the cost of living crisis.
The letter is calling for the formation of a new Executive to set a multi-year budget and introduce solutions to help local people who are struggling to meet the growing cost of essentials. Local households of all shapes and sizes are being pummelled by rising costs and urgently need support.
The letter says people are skipping meals, turning off heating and lighting and making their own sanitary products. It warns the situation is likely to worsen heading into the colder, darker months.
These experiences only scratch the surface of what the cost of living crisis is doing to women, men, children, parents, older people, young people, disabled people, unpaid carers, ethnic minorities and many more in every corner of Northern Ireland. The impact that this is having on people’s physical and mental health and wellbeing is severe.
The letter comes after an energy support scheme for people in Northern Ireland was confirmed on Wednesday.
In September, Action Mental Health’s Promote service held their annual awards ceremony to honour clients who have taken part in a wide-range of courses throughout the year.
Councillor Karen Douglas (Mayor of Ards and North Down), Patsie McManus Day Services Lead for Adult Disability (SEHSST), David Babington (Chief Executive of Action Mental Health), Stephen Gibson (Neighbourhood Officer – PSNI) and family and friends of the clients attended the awards that took place in the Bangor-based service for adults with learning disabilities.
Before the awards commenced those in attendance were treated to a number of performances from clients. Anika Johnston read a sensory story that she had written titled ‘Once on a Wild and Stormy Night’. The Environment Group demonstrated the Promote Environmental Pledge using Makaton and the Client Representatives explained their role in the service. The choir also performed Imagine Dragons’ top hit – On Top of the World – using Makaton and some stop-start animation projects, which clients had produced, were premiered.
Every client received a certificate with some other’s receiving prizes voted for by their peers. The top prize of the Outstanding Client of the Year, was scooped up by Darren Courtenay, as voted by the whole Promote staff team.
Action Mental Health on the 10th of September join the annual World Suicide Prevention Day campaign.
This year focuses on the message of ‘Creating Hope Through Action’.
The aim of World Suicide Prevention Day is to raise awareness that suicide is preventable, improve education and spread information about suicide awareness.
If you or someone you know is in crisis or distress – please reach out for help by clicking on the green button top right of the website and following the links.
People living with pain issues are bring given a vital helping hand through a programme specially designed to help them cope with their condition.
Action Mental Health, funded by the Western Health and Social Care Trust, offer self-management courses for those suffering a wide variety of pain conditions.
The Managing the Challenge (MTC) programme helps people manage their condition, including the pain they routinely suffer, more effectively.
MTC teaches people the skills to enable them to deal with the pain and the associated fatigue, anxiety and stress that often accompanies their condition. The programme offers people helpful techniques to help them move more, relax more easily, set goals, problem solve and improve their ability to talk about their pain to friends, family and healthcare professionals.
AMH’s MTC training is free to anyone over 18, in the Western Health and Social Care Trust area, who has a long term health condition or experiencing ongoing pain and is interested in learning new skills in self- managing their condition or pain.
The programme uses research-based techniques and strategies and has been designed with the help of healthcare professionals from the Trust with a wide range of knowledge and proven experience in providing support to those in pain.
Courses are delivered by experienced, skilled and empathetic trainers, many who have personal experience of long term health conditions.
“The trainer was a ray of sunshine in a dark and stormy day,”
AMH Client
David Tierney, Managing the Challenge trainer based at AMH New Horizons Fermanagh stated: “Learning to manage your condition, or pain significantly improves the quality of people’s lives. Most people with a chronic pain condition see a healthcare professional for as little as five hours per year. Our self-management programme helps you, through evidence informed ways, to support yourself in the remaining 8755 hours a year.
“Perhaps more importantly many others with similar conditions have told us they have benefited greatly from it,” he added. “We are confident that the programme could help sufferers to turn down the volume of their pain so that they live the best life they can in spite of having a pain condition.”
The programme is delivered in six weekly, 2.5 hour sessions in Derry/Londonderry, Enniskillen, Strabane, Omagh, Limavady and other locations across County Fermanagh. These courses provide an opportunity for participants to share their ideas and experience in a friendly and supportive environment.
AMH also deliver a small number of courses remotely via Zoom for those individuals with travel issues or who consider themselves as vulnerable due to their health condition.
Clients have paid glowing tribute to the staff delivering the programme, as well as its content.
“The trainer was a ray of sunshine in a dark and stormy day,”
“The course was fab. It was great for feeling that you belong and that there are others who suffer the same symptoms.”
MTC Client
It was good to talk to people who are going through the same thing as you are going through.”
For more information contact: MTC Programme Coordinator
c/o AMH New Horizons Fermanagh 7 Cherrymount Road,
The stress levels of school children and students start to rise as they approach exam results days, often with fear and trepidation. Action Mental Health is offering young people and families support and tips on getting prepared and learning to recognise and deal with exam results stress.
It is normal to feel a bit worried about exam results, especially if you’re under pressure from school or family. It can cause you to feel anxious or depressed, and this might affect your sleeping or eating habits.
If you recognise any of these feelings or are worried that exam results pressure is taking over your life, you are not alone, and there are things you and those around you can do to help.
In this article, we highlight some useful tips to help you overcome the feelings you may have about your exam results.
Symptoms of excessive stress include:
Physical effects such as headaches, dizziness and stomach upset.
Being preoccupied with thoughts of exams and feeling unable to relax.
Becoming withdrawn from friends, family and hobbies.
Constant tiredness due to problems sleeping.
Loss of appetite or over-eating.
Seeing only the negative side of things.
Becoming more aggressive and short-tempered with those around you.
Feeling so low and desperate that you are considering stopping school, running away or harming yourself.
If you can relate to any of these feelings, it is important to seek support. There are a number of services which AMH MensSana can sign-post you to that offer help and advice or you may find support from friends, family or someone at school – it doesn’t matter who, but it is important to speak to someone.
For young people
Check out our list of tips and techniques to help you deal with results day stress. Different things work for everyone so try some out and choose the ones that work best for you.
1. Talk to people around you
Try not to bottle up your feelings. Mental health issues aren’t uncommon among students, so you’ll likely know others who are struggling. Your parents or older relatives may have also felt the same sort of emotions waiting for their results. Sometimes just talking about your anxieties out loud can help ease the burden.
2. Plan for the best and worst outcomes
Exams don’t always go to plan, and you might not get the grades you need. Make sure you’ve researched what to do on results day but don’t dwell on the worst-case scenario. Think of a way to celebrate with friends and family if you do get the results you need. Even if your grades aren’t great, you still deserve to do something nice.
3. Maintain a normal routine
Try not to let waiting for your exams take over your summer. Keep yourself as busy as possible to distract yourself from results day stress. If you have hobbies, keep up with them and try to stick with any plans you’ve made, such as holidays and spending time with friends.
4. Have someone with you when you get your results
Have someone with you on the day to offer reassurance, talk through options if your results aren’t what you wanted, and hopefully celebrate your success. This could be a parent, guardian, sibling, friend, or even a teacher.
5. Don’t feel like you have to open your results with friends or share what you got
There can be a lot of peer pressure to open results at the same time and share what you got with everyone, but you don’t have to. You can collect your results and open them at home to avoid this scenario. Many schools and colleges will also publish results online or offer a text results service.
6. Don’t compete or compare your results with others
A common feature of results day is students sharing their results on social media and this can lead to comparing your results unfavourably. It may help to avoid social media completely for a few days.
Remember to judge your success by your own standards. If you know you worked hard for your grades, but your friend got higher ones, that doesn’t make your achievement any less impressive.
Young people will find stress much easier to deal with if they receive support from those around them. As a parent/guardian you can help and support a young person by:
Taking an interest in their study by offering encouragement and support – try not to criticise or place added pressure on them.
Praising and encouraging their efforts and achievements can be motivating and demonstrates your support for them.
Try to keep things in perspective and encourage them to do the same – remember that exam results are not the only indicator of a young person’s capabilities.
Taking exams and getting your exam results can be a worrying time. It can seem like your future depends on what you get. Receiving disappointing results can feel like the end of the world, but it is important to remember that people’s strengths and weaknesses lie in different areas and not everyone performs at their best under exam conditions.
The results you receive do not have to define what you do or who you are in the future.
For Learning Disability Week, we sat down with some of our fabulous clients who currently attend in our Promote Service.
We wanted to find out how they are reconnecting with friends and their communities. We also wanted to talk about the issues many people still face after the end of COVID restrictions, like still having to isolate or dealing with poor mental health and anxiety.
Our AMH Promote Clients chat to us about reconnecting and how Promote helps them.
In their first visit since prior to the Covid-19, AMH Promote visited Titanic Belfast.
All our staff involved with AMH would like to pass on their thanks to Titanic Belfast staff who pulled out all the stops to make our clients welcome, including having a very generous gift pack for all clients.
A huge thank you in particular to Director of Operations, Siobhan Lynch and Communications Officer, Louise Denver.
What Happened?
Anika (right), pictured with clients of AMH Promote
One of our clients Anika L Johnson wanted to share her experience of her visit to Titanic Belfast.
Anika wanted to be an author but was told she couldn’t. Anika however is attending an event in Ballymena next week, where she will be reading a sensory poem she has written. Keep your eye’s peeled for more of her work in the future.
Trip to Titanic by Anika L Johnson
This was our first trip out of Promote since the disaster of Covid. I found it to be an informative experience, especially as it has been a long time since we have left the Promote grounds. I had actually forgotten how that felt; to leave the grounds. It felt strange and unnerving. Thankfully all went to plan, everyone had a good time and the staff in Titanic treated us very elegantly.
Interestingly, I was proved correct on a vital point, if the operating area in the Titanic had not got in the field of the gossiping train, there is every possibility that the disaster would not have happened. As in, the vital information of the ice warnings was not getting through, due to the telecommunications being used for secondary and unnecessary information.
On display in the museum, there were some photos of an extremely lucky clergyman who had departed, before the disaster struck. His photos are taken between Belfast and Southampton, and prove how much luck he really held. They give an interesting look into what the boat was like on its first voyage, before it was ravaged by rust.
There was also an interesting section on deep sea diving, that shows what the ship looks like now. We watched this on the big screen and it made me feel saddened, as the Titanic was a very proud moment for Belfast and so many lost their lives. Anyone who would have survived must have suffered from PTSD, or in terms of the day ‘shell shock.’
I personally enjoyed the section of memorabilia for filmic stories, as it is interesting to see different people take on the disaster. My take is that in all honesty it should not have happened, but as no one can see what lies ahead, they did their best for their time. We now know better and have various equipment to detect these things.
The Titanic building itself is impressive, and is the size of the boat. It took a long time to put together and the work was worth the money they spent, as it is important we learn about our history, especially mistakes as they teach us the most.
I am really looking forward to future trips and now we have had our maiden voyage, I am confident that life will get back to normal! Peace out!
AMH Promote Bangor provides opportunities for adults with learning disabilities, by enabling social activity and offering up a platform to develop new skills in a supportive and engaging environment. Not only is the charity celebrating Learning Disability Week (20-26 June) but its appreciation for the dedicated service of Assistant Skills Coach, Paul Laffey.
Based at Enterprise Road, Conlig, Action Mental Health Promote is a centre that “welcomes people with open arms”, according to Paul, a man happy in his job, an evolving role with the mental health charity spanning 25 years this month.
Since 1995, Paul has embraced various positions, teaching woodwork, then IT and today as one of Promote’s highly trained Assistant Skills Coaches, he finds his days spent delivering a broad spectrum of non-accredited and accredited courses.
As a result of a motorcycle accident 40 years ago, Paul broke his neck and is a quadriplegic. Paul explains, “I’ve had to learn to be patient and adapt to all the different challenges we have to overcome when you have a disability.”
In line with this year’s Learning Disability Week themes of reconnecting with friends and communities and addressing isolation issues, many people living with a learning disability still face after the end of COVID restrictions, AMH Promote is there to make a positive difference to mental health.
“I think we all make a difference to each and every one of our clients in some way, as each day they learn new skills, which will help them later on in life. We have social outings and lots of different activities, which can only be good for them. Adding, “AMH Promote speaks for itself and continues to strengthen year on year. If you’re committed to working with people with additional needs, you could not start in a better place. It’s an ideal way to start your career.
When I applied for the job I had no experience of working with adults with learning disabilities. However, within days I settled in so well, I never found it a challenge. Maybe it’s because I have a disability myself.” Adding, “The clients accepted me with open arms, they were never judgmental of my ability to do my job, just so friendly and helpful to my needs. I honestly couldn’t ask for a better bunch of guys to work with, they are friends for life.”
For further information please visit https://www.amh.org.uk/services/promote/
