This week Sharon Ferguson, Donegal Wellness Café (DWC) had a chat with Paul all about mental health, how the cafés have developed across the county and their recent award success.
Hi Sharon, how are you?
I’m very good thanks.
You work with the Donegal Wellness Cafés, and congratulations on the two Healthcare Award nominations you’ve just received. Could you tell us a little bit about that?
Thank you, we were shortlisted in two categories for the Irish Healthcare Centre Awards 2023. I’m delighted to say we brought home the award for Patient Education/Lifestyle Project. This award brings national recognition for the work across the county that the Wellness Cafés have achieved. There are 14 cafes across the county.
What/when was the trigger for the creation of the DWC?
Letterkenny Wellness Café Development Group was established in June 2019. The group consists of service users and Donegal Mental Health Services. Hosting a Wellness Café in An Grianán Theatre Letterkenny had organically grown. Participants who had participated in EOLAS (an eight-week programme for service users and family members with a diagnosis of psychosis) in Letterkenny were given the opportunity to take part in a nine-week programme called “Write to Recovery.” The placement of the training in An Grianán Theatre Eatery café was not random. The hope was that placing the workshop in an open space that promoted creativity, and removed the “closed door” normality of courses or workshops for mental health, would reduce stigma. The group embraced the space. One participant said “nobody even knows what we’re doing here”, and it was here the real possibility of the space being a Wellness Café was born.
As the idea became more real the group discussed the responsibility, commitment and supports they would need for a Wellness Café to be safe for both them and patrons, and one that would be both supported and sustainable. A meeting was arranged with the Director of Nursing DMHS to discuss supports from services. A commitment was given that staff would assist the service users to develop and run the café. It is important to note that service users had engaged, directed and invested their time over a total of 27 weeks to the launch of the cafe and continue to do so with energy and commitment. They remain determined advocates for the delivery of Wellness Cafés across Donegal so that many more service users can benefit.
The Café was launched in September 2019 at An Grianán Theatre, Letterkenny. It’s self-sufficient and does not require funding to operate, as the venue is free and patrons are charged a minimal cost for tea/coffee. The staff of An Grianán Theatre have been instrumental in their support of the café and the ambience created for patrons to feel welcomed there.
Did Covid have an impact on numbers?
It seemed that a lot of people came out of the pandemic with issues of loneliness or anxiety. Letterkenny Café had to close its doors over Covid which certainly impacted the patrons. On the other hand there was a positive impact as things began to open up, we had more areas than anticipated looking to set up cafés as a means to tackle the issues the pandemic had raised. It was always envisioned that Wellness Cafés would be created across Donegal. To this end the first Wellness Café Facilitation Skills course was developed. Funding was received from Donegal Mind Wellness to deliver this training in Donegal, with the hope of setting up five new cafés and training 25 peers to facilitate them. However, by October 2020, we had actually achieved a further 15 cafés across the county with 60 facilitators trained. It is important to recognise the whole community approach to the Wellness Cafés from businesses to community groups, peers and services who are the ones on the ground welcoming people across the county week in week out.
What kinds of services does DWC offer? Do staff get involved with the conversations (i.e. are they trained in dealing with mental or emotional issues), or just keep the hot coffee flowing?
This is not a service in the traditional sense. It is a model of support that exists outside mainstream mental health services and operates from a social, rather than a medical perspective. The initial target group were people accessing mental health services, but the model has grown and is open to anyone. The cafés are about connection, the initial group of peers made it very clear that they did not want a support group, so what the cafés have created is a supportive environment. Staff’s role in the cafés is to support the peers in their facilitation. Peers, people with lived experience of mental health challenges, are the key drivers across the café.
Do you find your job alarming (with so many people struggling) or rewarding?
My current role is Mental Health & Wellbeing Project Officer in ATU Donegal and Peer Lead in the cafés. In one way I’m alarmed that I’m not really alarmed at how so many are struggling. Then again there is more focus on mental health now, but there is still stigma around mental illness, that’s a conversation we still don’t have enough of. Developing this model has certainly been a labour of love for me and having so many people join in has been remarkable. The ethos of the cafés is very much “doing with” not “doing for”. As a society we are great at doing things for people, I think it’s in our DNA! We are not so good at “doing with”. The problem with this is that we do not value people’s experience and resilience, we disempower people by not giving them choice over decisions that affect their own lives. The cafés are not prescriptive: people choose to attend, they buy their own tea/coffee and meet up with friends just like everyone else. People get very confused about this model due to its simplicity! All the cafés do is create the environment for people to grow and support their own journeys through connection with others.
Are there patterns? Do you see more people of a certain age coming in, for example, or do people in Letterkenny have different kinds of problems than people in, say, Gaoth Dobhair?
The drive for people attending Wellness Cafés across the county is connection, and the sustainability of that, knowing that you are going to meet up with your friends on a weekly, fortnightly basis gives people something to look forward to. I suppose to maybe clear up the vision of what people think a Wellness Café looks like is to say that mental health is very rarely spoken about. What you would see on any given day dropping into any of the Wellness Cafés is a group of people sitting round having the craic with friends.
Are there any other issues you’d like to raise?
The Cafés are not funded. This is how the model was set up, and supports its values and ethos, but with the growth of the cafés there is a need for a Peer post, someone who would support the co-ordination and peer development across all sites. Recruitment and retention of Peers is also an issue, but we have recently received some funding to roll out training across the county for anyone interested in facilitating in the cafés. We also have requests from other groups looking to do what we are doing in Donegal, but obviously we don’t have the capacity to travel around the country. So to resolve this I have written a toolkit with the support of Peer Facilitators, to give anyone who wishes to set up a Wellness Café in their own area an overview of what we’ve done in Donegal. We might even go global!
Quick fire:
The book or the film? The book
The perfect night? A book, soft music and a sunset
What motivates you? Seeing people get the same opportunities that I’ve been given
What do you look for most in a friend? Sense of humour
What angers you? Bad manners
How do you relax now? Anyone who knows me will tell you I never relax! But I do love a good book.
Do you have a motto you try to live by? If you want to go fast go alone if you want to go far go together (African proverb).
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