Mid West ARIES Spring Summer timetable released

Mid-West ARIES Spring Summer timetable released. Pictured are Jean, Rose, and Ann at Our Lady of Lourdes.

Mid-West ARIES – Bringing Recovery Education in Mental Health

Mid-West Advancing Recovery in Ireland Education Service (ARIES) launched their Spring/ Summer 2019 timetable today.

The Mid-West ARIES Spring Summer Timetable includes details of their range of free educational courses and workshops which are designed to promote recovery and well-being in mental health.

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With the support of the HSE Mid-West Community Healthcare, Mid-West ARIES offered up to 90 workshops across the region in 2018 where attendees gave feedback about the positive learning experiences they had and the useful tools they picked up to help maintain well-being. One person attending in Newcastle West said: “I love that the workshops are interactive and everyone is involved and gives their opinions.”

                 Mid West ARIES Spring Summer timetable

In promoting the new community timetable for Spring/Summer 2019, Eileen Cunningham, (Education, Training and Development Officer) outlined what makes ARIES unique: “Co-production underpins everything we do here with ARIES. The content for all of our courses is created with people in the Mid-West, for people in the Mid-West. Each workshop contains the input of people who have used mental health services, people with lived experience of mental health difficulties, families, carers and supporters and staff working within the mental health services. Something that people appreciate as well is that when we deliver the workshops, we have three facilitators – one with lived experience, one family member and one member of staff. Everyone’s expertise is recognised and valued.”

One of the aims of Mid-West ARIES is to work with communities in the Mid West to provide free educational programmes on mental health recovery and well-being. Mike O’Neill (Peer Education, Training and Development Officer) stresses the importance of this: “We pride ourselves on creating effective partnerships in local communities to achieve this aim. In Limerick, in 2018 we were delighted to partner with Our Lady of Lourdes Community Centre, with West Limerick Resources and we linked up with a number of other organisations in the city and county. It is important to work with people who are in touch with what is happening and what is needed in terms of mental health in communities.”

Mid-West ARIES also offers recovery education workshops within the mental health services, including a weekly session with people using the services in the Acute Psychiatric Unit (5B), and training for staff in Recovery Principles and Practice. Partnership with HSE Mid-West Community Healthcare has been central to the success of these sessions with one participant feeling that “having facilitators who understand how debilitating mental illness can be was very good as it can make people struggling to feel more hopeful about recovery” and another saying that the sessions helped them to “feel a bit of hope”.

This year, Mid-West ARIES has also partnered with Southill Hub where free ‘Living Well With Anxiety’ workshops are scheduled to start on 14th February from 10am-1pm for four weeks.

They have also partnered with Ballyhoura Development CLG to offer six weeks of workshops in Kilmallock from 3rd May – 7th June from 10am-1pm.

There will also be a free two-hour mental health workshop in Rathkeale Youth Space on 9th April at 10.30am as part of the Limerick Lifelong Learning Festival.

Courses are open to all and are free of charge. Anyone who would like to attend a workshop is welcome and if you would like to find out more information then please contact the ARIES team on 085-8768517 or email [email protected]. Please see timetable below for further information on courses available or visit Mid West ARIES on Twitter for up to date information.

For more information about Mid-West Aries, click here

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