The Donegal Wellness Café has been nominated in two categories for the Irish Healthcare Centre Awards 2023.
It has been selected for the Healthcare Initiative Mental Health Care and Healthcare Initiative Patient Education/Lifestyle Project categories.
The Wellness Café initiative was developed in Donegal by people with lived experience of Mental Health illness and clinicians working in the service.
There are currently 15 cafés established in Donegal with the latest addition in the Atlantic Technological University Letterkenny where the students are verbalising the benefits of being involved.
This engagement was born because service users of mental health services needed not to be seen as patients, but individuals with knowledge ability, creativity, rights and ownership over their own recovery.
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, find out what they need to know, and develop quality in their recovery journey.
Success for this initiative will empower those who have given time and commitment to its development and encourage others to mobilise their communities and services to follow suit.
Dr John McCardle, HSE Area Director of Nursing in Donegal, said: “I would like to extend congratulations on behalf of the Donegal Mental Health Service to all those who have supported and participated in this initiative.”
