There was a full house at the Dunfanaghy Wellness Café’s end of year community celebration, which took place at Dunfanaghy Workhouse on Monday, December 16.
The event began with Breege Ward from Dunfanaghy Family Resource Centre giving an audience of around 40 guests, a quick overview of what a wellness café is, how they first started and why the Dunfanaghy Wellness Café is important to its participants.
Breege explained that the Wellness café began in Donegal, and that it was the brainchild of a lady called Sharon Ferguson.
“It’s a very simple idea stemming from the knowledge we have, which tells us that humans are social animals and require connection to others to thrive and stay well,” she said.
The Wellness Café model reflects the therapeutic community model of mental health support through its peer led community-base.
It promotes human connection, recovery and improved mental wellbeing among the general population and has a particular focus on supporting the inclusion of people with poor mental health, and/or a mental health diagnosis in becoming active citizens.
So, simply put, it’s good to talk, and by dropping in once a fortnight or whenever the café group meet, and sitting with supportive members of the community for a cuppa and a chat participants are in fact supporting each other to look after their mental health .
Funding for Monday’s event came through the HSE Connecting for life service for a ‘Write to Recovery programme’.
The HSE are currently compiling a book and are gathering poems and stories from Wellness Café Groups around the county and individuals with real life experience of poor mental health.
The Dunfanaghy group agreed to use this opportunity to review the current set up of the café and wanted to insure that going forward into 2025, it supported their changing needs, through their journey of wellness and recovery, alongside being mindful of the need for accessibility for all.
Over a period of three months, various cafés were visited, observations were made and discussed, worries, fears, ideas and agreements were reached.
The journey of discovery, along with simple conclusions, was reached and then it was elegantly converted into a poem titled ‘How do we do – A wellness café review’.
The whole process was invigorating for the café, it brought the café to the attention of new community members, friendships were made and the café has got stronger throughout the process.
To join the Dunfanaghy Wellness Café’s WhatsApp Group please contact the Dunfanaghy Family Resource Centre on 0749136548.
Keep an eye out for the next café meet up which will take place as part of the ‘First Fortnight Celebrations’ in Dunfanaghy on Monday, January 12 from 11am to 12.30pm.
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