Awards night

We hosted an awards night on 8 November.

Winning entry

Dannielle O’Connell, a graphic design graduate from Wicklow, produced the winning entry with “Monster in the closet” and  talks here about what inspired her and the challenges she faced.

What is your film about?

In this short motion piece,  aspects of mental health awareness are explored through interviews with young people regarding their own experiences/understanding of mental health problems.  All three participants discuss how they overcame their fears of communicating with other people and how talking about their problems was the first step in their recovery.

What inspired you to make the film and enter the competition?

Often an obstacle faced by people struggling with mental health issues is  the worry of how other people might view them were they to express their feelings of anxiety or depression. Conducting the interviews for this project revealed that sufferers of mental health issues feel isolated and outcast, meaning that they are less likely to reach out to others for help or advice.

What were the challenges of making the film?

What I found challenging in the brief was attempting to communicate the seriousness of mental health issues whilst maintaining an upbeat and engaging tone throughout the piece.

What did you enjoy about working on this project?

What I found to be a positive aspect of the project was generating the content, allowing the participants to dictate the narrative and drive the message.

Check out the other entries

First runner up – Dara McLoughlin’s Our mental health

Second runner up – Stephen Power’s Unfold

Highly commended – Beibhinn Delaney’s Self portrait

Highly commended – Karen Murphy’s A problem shared

Highly commended – Carmel Sayers’s My List

Highly commended – Colum O’Dwyer and Ela Gas’s Your life is your life

Why we fight for it

Independence, as we know well here, is a pretty significant thing for a country. Nations will fight wars and go through years of suffering to be masters of their own destiny, and make their own decisions. People across the world have sacrificed bitterly for that right. What comes next?

The whole aftermath bit wasn’t so smooth in America, or France (with the be-heading and stuff) or here. Civil wars, making laws, trying to get the trains to run on time…whoever it was that said that with freedom comes responsibility wasn’t half right.

Personal battles

It might seem like a bit of a stretch to compare the wars of independence fought by nations with the relatively insignificant battle for freedom that we all go through growing up. But when you think about it they’re not so far apart.

Without independence, we can feel frustrated and oppressed. Why should anyone else, your folks or your teachers or whoever it is you’re up against, get to decide what happens to you, or what you do? Coping with a lack of independence is tough. We fight for the right to decide, to choose, to be by ourselves.

Going it alone

When we win, just like countries who are suddenly out on their own, there’s a whole lot to figure out. Whether it’s getting a job and a flat or just being able to make decisions in your own space, independence is tough – you can’t manage without it, but managing it isn’t easy.

From the practical, money stuff to getting support making big decisions, or figuring out what you want to do with your life, it can take a bit of time to get to grips with it all. There can be plenty of rough bits along the way. We make mistakes and need to get back up again.Eventually, we get the hang of it. It might not be time for fireworks and hotdogs, but it feels good.

If you’re finding it tough to manage independence, or struggling to have a bit more freedom, check out what is independence, as well as money, work and study for tips on going it on your own.

Joint campaign

The campaign, spearheaded by four national youth groups (ReachOut, 
Headstrong, Fóroige and BeLong To) was launched to put young people directly in touch with their local candidates.

Issues that matter

We often hear politicians talking about the importance of investing in our country’s future. So we’re asking why issues that matter to young people, like their mental health, rarely feature in political debates. We want to make sure that youth mental health becomes an issue that is talked about, by young people and their local representatives.

Energetic campaign

Get on Board for Youth Mental Health has two angles,aimed at both young people and election candidates:

▪ Get On Board Online! – the hub of the campaign. You can support the campaign and interact with your candidates through an online map. Tweets and emails can be sent directly though the site.
Videos and photos of every candidate that gets on board, as well as messages of support from well-known faces will be constantly uploaded to the site so you can see exactly who is supporting our campaign.

▪ Get on Board the Bus! – a campaign bus will be hitting the streets next week! We’re travelling to candidates around the country asking them to “get on board” with youth mental health. We might even play a little game of “Follow the Leader!”
 The open-top bus will be full of young people, a band and a camera crew and candidates will be invited on board to hear what young people have to say.

We want every candidate in the country to be asked, be it on Facebook or on the doorstep: ”What are you doing to get on board for youth mental health?”

Listening to the inspirational hurler Donal Óg Cusack on Friday I was reminded that the people around us, our friends and family, are all that really matter in life. At a seminar to mark World Mental Health Day, Donal Óg talked about the value of friendship and the importance of the person standing next to you. Over 2,000 years ago, the Greek Spartan warriors would always go into battle with a spear in their right hand and a shield in their left hand – they all held their shields in their left hand to protect the man standing next to them. In Ireland, in the year 2010, the person standing next to you is as important as ever.

On World Mental Health Day, 10 October 2010, it’s important to remind ourselves of a few facts about mental health, mental illness and the support that’s out there. We know from Ron Kessler’s research in the U.S. that most mental health problems begin during teenage years or in our early 20s. So it’s during that sometimes turbulent time of transition into adulthood that we most need support. In Ireland, as in most countries that consider themselves ‘developed’, mental health services are split between child & adolescent services and adult services. This means that slap bang in the middle of the period when we’re most vulnerable, if we have mental health needs that only a mental health professional can meet, the digits on our birth certificate will decide whether we’re seen by a struggling, under resourced child & adolescent service or an inappropriate adult service. Put simply, as our friend Tony Bates from Headstrong put it recently, the system is weakest when the need is greatest.

Our mental health services are poor. Despite the fact that at least one in four of us will experience a serious mental health problem during our life and that suicide is the biggest killer of our young men, the mental health budget accounts for only 5.3% of the total health budget – and it may fall even lower after the next budget. Where does that leave us? We started some focus groups recently around the country and one of the things we ask about is formal and informal support, “where would you go for support with a mental health problem?” When it comes to formal support we don’t seem to have a clue. Apart from Samaritans, and school or college counsellors (which is great if we’re lucky enough to be in school or college and even then it depends on where you are) the people we’ve spoken to don’t seem to know where to go.

There are places to go. GPs will help you get through a tough time. There are good quality, low cost counselling services available out there (see http://counsellingdirectory.ie). But, most of our mental health problems, most of the tough times we go through, can be made easier by talking to a friend or a family member. This brings us back to the Spartan warriors. If you’re going through a tough time, talk to the people who are nearest to you. If you’re not going through a tough time, look out for the person standing next to you.

For more info on how to look out for people close to you, see the section on help a friend.

Jack visited us recently at our Youth Advisory Network event and he got involved with creating a great ReachOut.com graffiti mural.

Jack is a former diplomat and political adviser who became a high flying speech writer working in the  prime minister’s office.

But the murder of a close friend, followed by the suicide of a young cousin, led to an emotional watershed that forced him to confront his own repressed childhood trauma.

Seeking a more meaningful life, Jack Heath shocked his family and friends by turning his back on a promising political career to establish Inspire, which is committed to supporting and inspiring young people.

Now, after ten years of success in Australia, ReachOut.com is in Ireland and the US.

Check out the full story on the ABC website:

http://www.abc.net.au/austory/specials/hitroadjack/default.htm

Don’t forget to select the hi-res option!