What Does A Comunity Development Approach to Mental Health Look Like?

The first in a series of webinars in the Voice, Equality, Experience, Power initiative, more than 30 participants came together to share knowledge and understanding of how we can best put our community development principles into practice when responding to and tackling mental health and poverty  

Joanne Vance, director of CDHN, chaired the event welcoming our participants and speakers from across Ireland and Northern Ireland.  Triona Byrne from the Recovery Acadmenty gave the participants some background to the initiative and set the context in terms of community development values and the WHO definition on CD approaches to mental health. Nora Corcaron from the Galway Traveller Movement provided us with a tour of the work she has been involved in over the past number of years with the movement, including co-design of programmes and campaigns and challenging stereotypes. John Kelly then gave us an overview of his own experience and the work in Gateway Mental Health, where a community of people with experience of mental ill health has grown in Dublin.  Grainne Graham from the Crisis Cafe told us of the evolution of the cafe in response to the needs of young people in the Newry area.

The session finished with an opportunity to ask questions and discuss what we heard with our speakers.  You can find excerpts of the webinar here.