HSE employees in Donegal have become just the third group in Ireland to receive a Gold Forum Award for their Tobacco Free Campus work.
HSE Mental Health Services Ascain Training and Support Services (Letterkenny, Carndonagh and Dungloe) won the international award.
This award gives recognition to healthcare services working at the highest level of implementation of tobacco management based on the Global Network for Tobacco Free Healthcare (GNTH) Service Standards.
The Global Network’s mission is to advocate, recruit and enable healthcare services and professionals globally to implement and sustain effective tobacco management and cessation policies in accordance with the WHO Framework Convention for Tobacco Control (FCTC).
HSE Ascain Training and Support Service provides person centred training programmes and one-to-one support to people who are in recovery from mental ill health.
Ascain programmes are recovery focussed at their centres in Letterkenny, Dungloe and Carndonagh.
The service aims to help educate and support those accessing programmes to become more hopeful, more self-aware, to advocate for themselves and to make clear choices and decisions that relate to their achievement of personal goals and their improved recovery.
In order to be nominated as a GOLD Forum candidate, a healthcare service must have achieved a self-audit score equal to or greater than 126 out of 144 and have demonstrated the implementation of:
* A systematic tobacco cessation program
* A systematic health promotion program
* A tobacco-free healthcare environment
* A tobacco-free culture among healthcare staff
* Systematic monitoring and evaluation
* Engagement in community tobacco-free activities at a local, regional and national level
Once achieved, experienced healthcare service auditors conduct a national validation process, to confirm the achievement of the self-audit score, and the service is forwarded for consideration of the Gold Forum.
Gemma McLoone, Ascain Manager and her team have been engaged with Health Promotion and Improvement for the last 10 years embracing the treatment of tobacco as a healthcare issue.
All the team members have completed Making Every Contact Count (MECC) training and Ascain is a MECC implementation site; the first mental health service to gain that MECC status in Community Services Cavan, Donegal, Leitrim, Monaghan, Sligo.
As a result, Ascain are very active in having appropriate discussions with their service users around tobacco and its evidence-based treatment. In addition, they use MECC to address other health behaviours such as physical activity, healthy eating, alcohol and drug use.
There have only ever been two other recipients of the Gold Forum award in Ireland in the past – Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital Drogheda and National Forensic Mental Health Service.
HSE Mental Health Services Ascain Training and Support Services received their award at the GNTH conference in Dublin on the June 26th 2025.
Padraig O’Beirne, Acting Head Mental Health Services, Cavan, Donegal, Leitrim, Monaghan, Sligo said “Ascain are so deserving of this award as they are a leading example of how collaboration between Mental Health services and Health and Wellbeing can help improve both the physical and mental health of our service users.”
Gemma McLoone said “I personally would like to congratulate and thank the wonderful staff at Ascain, as this award is testament to their hard work and efforts that they make on a daily basis, when engaging with service users.
“I would also like to thank all staff members who have worked with us over the last 10 years who have moved on to pastures new, this award includes their efforts too, so I thank all very, very much. I would also like to thank our service users for coming in to us every day, for working with us and trusting us in our efforts in helping them to make life better.
“Ascain would also like to thank staff of Donegal Mental Health Services, Donegal Health Promotion Department and the Day Services Coordination Team for their continued support.”
Service user, John Lavelle said “I smoked for over 25 years and I really wanted to quit. Ascain were great and encouraged me to see the smoking cessation nurse in Letterkenny, they helped me a lot. I’m glad to say I’ve never smoked since the first meeting with them and have been off them for two and a half years now.”
Ascain is an Irish word direct meaning to migrate. People who migrate do so to move to something or somewhere better, improved circumstances and a more hopeful situation. The hope is those who engage with Ascain, afterwards find themselves in a better place.
Pictured above: Fiona Boyle, Health Promotion & Improvement, Health & Wellbeing Service, HSE Community Services, Rosemary Hannigan, Business Manager, Donegal Mental Health Services Gemma McLoone, Ascain Manager, Donegal Mental Health Services and Susann Koalick, President Forum for Tobacco Prevention in Health Care Services, GNTH Switzerland Board Member, GNTH, Edward Murphy, Project Manager, HSE Tobacco Free Ireland Programme, Chair GNTH Board.
