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Right HereRight HereA voice and a choice for our mental health

Fermanagh

Lead Organisation: YouthAction Northern Ireland

Core partners: Western Education and Library Board; Public Health Agency; ARC Healthy Living Centre; OAK Healthy Living Centre; Youth Council for Northern Ireland; Fermanagh District Council; Western Health and Social Care Trust, Action Mental Health

Target area: Fermanagh

Target groups: Young people from disadvantaged communities; young parents; LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) young people and young people from new ethnic communities

Young people debating Collective Encounters, Pete Carr’s color photos

Right Here Fermanagh aims to improve the mental health and wellbeing of young people across Fermanagh by improving their social and psychological functioning and their satisfaction with life.

Recent Activities

  • Owen Paterson, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, met with young people from Right Here Fermanagh and the Right Here National Youth Panel at the Lakeland Youth Centre during a visit to Enniskillen in May 2011.

  • Right Here Fermanagh has set up a Positive Text Service so that young people can receive inspirational messages via their mobile phones when they are feeling most vulnerable.

  • Following on from the Positive Text Service, young people have liaised with relevant authorities to identify locations for street-bleaching whereby positive messages can be stencilled in rural and town-based areas where young people congregate.

  • Members of the young women’s panel have been exploring their own process of improving mental wellbeing through song writing and plan to launch a song they have composed at a music event.

  • Young men have expressed increased self-confidence and improved communication skills after participating in Fish On! a project using workshop based interventions and actual days of fishing to build young men’s self esteem.

  • Awareness- raising work has taken place with young men at St Joseph’s College and young women who attend Derrylin Youth Club, as well as group work with South East Fermanagh Foundation, and St John’s Cadets aimed at addressing low self esteem and coping with stress.

  • Right Here Fermanagh developed a response to the proposed Framework for Mental Health Service Delivery across Northern Ireland, collated using mental health discussions among young people in a number of large scale events run by Youth Action Northern Ireland.