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Minister Zappone launches ‘How’s Your Head – Young Voices during COVID-19’, a national consultation with young people on mental health and wellbeing during COVID-19

On 24th June the Department of Children and Youth Affairs opened a national consultation with young people on mental health and wellbeing during COVID-19. How’s Your Head – Young Voices during COVID-19 will hear directly from young people about what they have found hard during COVID-19, what changes in their lives they would like to retain, and what would help young people to improve their mental health and well-being over the coming summer months and beyond.

Opening the consultation, the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Dr Katherine Zappone said, “It has always been my experience that young people are the best architects of the solutions to address the challenges in their lives. COVID-19 is impacting on young people’s lives in many ways and now my Department wants to hear directly from them about what these impacts are and what might improve their situation as we continue to live alongside COVID-19.”

The consultation, hosted on http://www.spunout.ie, is open to all young people between the ages of 15 and 24 and will remain open from 24 June to 3 July. A Youth Advisory Group* designed and piloted the consultation questions and decided on the title; How’s Your Head – Young Voices during COVID-19.

Since the onset of COVID-19, and its related restrictions, concerns have been increasing about its impact on the mental health and well-being of young people. Research findings and reports from those in the youth sector indicate that young people are one of the groups most impacted. The consultation will help to deepen the understanding of how young people have experienced life during COVID-19. It will also provide valuable information that will influence our decision-making on how society can respond during the next period of living with COVID-19.
The findings from the consultation will be documented to inform relevant service design and delivery for young people. It will also assist Government in developing other appropriate policy responses on the issues raised by young people, supporting an informed, whole of society response to COVID-19 as relevant to the lives of young people.

A group of key stakeholders representing the National Youth Council of Ireland, health services, and research experts are working with the Department of Children and Youth Affairs to oversee the consultation and to ensure findings from the process are listened to and responded to in a timely and appropriate manner.

*Note: Members of the Youth Advisory Group come from across the country, range in age between 15 – 24 years and are nominated through a range of youth groups and organisations including Comhairle na nÓg, Foroige, Youth Work Ireland, Spunout.ie and the National Youth Council of Ireland.

Please click on the link below to access the survey

https://spunout.ie/news/article/dcya-covid-survey

Check out the Meath Local Sports Partnership Facebook page for simple games to play https://www.facebook.com/meathsportspartnership/

All you will need to do in order to be a part of BeActive is:

Pick an Activity 

Get your household together and pick an activity. You can play the games included on the Meath Local Sports Partnership Facebook page or make up your own, go for a walk or a cycle. No matter what you do, you must be active for 60 minutes!

When and Where

Pick a time that suits you and where you are going to be active – indoors, outdoors, in your back garden or local park?

Be Active 

Get everything you need ready and enjoy the games. You can  take part for fun or why not make it competitive and track the scores on the score sheet provided!

Celebrate and Share

Share a photo of your activity or games with us on social media. Tag @SportIreland on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and @MeathLocalSportsPartnership and don’t forget to use #NationalBeActiveDay

BeActive Day

Family Addiction Support Network (FASN) shut down it’s services at Lios Dubh on 12th March in line with the COVID19 Government Guidelines but more than ever families needed support. As a result, FASN developed online services for family members impacted by a loved one’s substance misuse using a fully GDPR compliant communications platform as best practice.

What we are experiencing from supporting Family Members is the increased worry and psychological stress, strain on family relationships, intimidating behaviour by a loved one’s addiction, financial burden of supporting drug user to buy drugs, impact on mental health from stress and worry of lockdown and caring responsibilities, isolation and loss of social life.

Our fundraising activities have all been cancelled due to Government Guidelines leaving us with no core funding and no fundraising activities in which to carry on supporting families and communities impacted by the increase in home drinking, domestic violence, isolation and threats of drug related intimidation amid this pandemic.

Following our Stop the Stigma event on 24th February, Sinead Hussey RTE contacted the FASN to conduct an interview to shine a light on the work of volunteers responding to the drugs issue within their community in the North East.

The interview took place at our premises in Lios Dubh, Dundalk on 12th June. Please click on the link below to access the news item featured on yesterdays 6pm RTE News.

https://www.rte.ie/news/2020/0621/1148718-addiction-dundalk/