THE Donegal Wellness Cafés have been selected as the winners of the Irish Healthcare Centre Awards 2023 Healthcare Initiative Patient Education/Lifestyle Project.
The awards were held in the Royal Marine Hotel, Dun Laoghaire on Friday night and there were 166 initiatives shortlisted in 28 categories.
The Wellness café initiative started with service users who initially completed the EOLAS education and information programme for people with psychosis followed by the ‘Write to Recovery’ programme in 2019.
This process was the foundation for the development of the Wellness Cafes in Donegal.
There are currently 15 cafes established in Donegal with the latest addition in the Atlantic Technological University, Letterkenny.
Dr John McCardle, HSE Area Director of Nursing in Donegal in congratulating the service said “This is a tremendous achievement for people with lived experience and staff from the Donegal Mental Health Service. The Wellness Cafes represent real empowerment in action.
“People have discovered themselves, found new ways of engagement, learned from others, developed friendships and confidence to try out new ways of being.
There is no them and us only we. No stigma and people have found their sense of purpose and identity,” Mr McCardle.
The Wellness Café initiative was developed in Donegal by people who have experienced mental health illness and clinicians working in the service.
The idea was to create a space in the local community for people with lived experience to meet up socially in a local café with staff from the services to discover themselves, create engagement, reduce isolation and develop quality in their recovery journey.
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