LYS Launches New Youth Mental Initiative Be Well Week

Limerick Be Well Week – Members of LYS and the Be Well Limerick community at the Milk Market on Culture Night. Photo: Holly Kenny / ilovelimerick

On Friday September 16, Limerick Youth Service launched its Youth Mental Team and Be Well Limerick Week at The Milk Market.

Be Well Week is a positive mental health week for children and young people across Limerick City and County. It’s going to be running from October 31 until November 6 and it’s going to be open to young people across City and County. The whole idea was we started a youth positive mental health group within Limerick Youth Service. The young people were finding that there was still an awful lot of stigma with mental health so they wanted to do something that was giving back to the community and helping other young people.

LYS spent Culture Night at the Milk Market where they displayed some photography from their summer mental health project and launched Limerick Be Well Week. Picture: BeWellLimerick Facebook Page.

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Throughout the week there will be a series of workshops that are fun and interactive, they will be equipping participants with a first aid mental health kit. Participants will be doing workshops around resilience, building, coping and they’ll be doing a street art campaign.

Mental Health Worker for the limerick Youth Service, Siobhan Wilmott said “On our committee for Be Well Week we have other organisations who work in mental health statuary and non-statuary and we’d also be linking in with Limerick Mental Health Awareness Week so we would sit collaboratively with a lot of other agencies like HSE and Grow. So we’re all trying to work together as organisations to help children and young people and adults with mental health issues.”

Comprised of two councillor-psychotherapists, a youth mental health worker and administration person, the Youth Mental Team is a welcome addition to Limerick Youth Service and will complement our role in supporting a young people. They take referrals from young people within Limerick Youth Service and people outside Limerick Youth Service from the ages 14-25 and then as a team they would discuss it and they would see which person is best suited to work with.

When asked about the importance of the youth being involved in organising mental health awareness events, Siobhan said “I think it’s really important because this has been developed by the young people within Limerick Youth Service and outside of Limerick Youth Service as well and said they want to do something. They want to take action so this is very much youth-led. So I might be helping facilitate that process, all of the design work and the artwork has been designed by the young people, the events and the workshops have been taken by the recommendations of the young people themselves, the issues they’re facing and also it’s about trying to get the wider community involved to take ownership, to take action and to have fun as well.”

A member of Youth Work Ireland, Limerick Youth Service remains committed to supporting and encouraging young people to be active participants in shaping their futures.

Check out Be Well Week updates on Facebook here.

For more stories from I Love limerick on Mental Health click here.