Inspire Wellbeing’s Derry has changed my life says member.
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00:00First off, could you just introduce yourself please?
00:02I am Judith Taylor, I'm the manager of this Foyle Community Wellbeing Service.
00:07And can you tell me about Foyle Wellbeing Community Service, I'm not too familiar with it myself.
00:12We're part of a mental health charity and we offer a range of courses, therapeutic and recreational, to individuals in the community.
00:21We have referrals from 18 to 65 and anything from maybe arts, crafts and walking groups to we've got DBT and mindfulness and therapeutic courses also.
00:34And can you tell me what's going on today, there's quite a lot of people here.
00:37So today is an open day and we have invited loads of people from the community, different organisations, our own, people from our Belfast Inspire service and all our service users, friends, families and other community groups.
00:50So we're running it from 11 to 2, we have no idea how many people are going to show up but so far so good.
00:57And we've got the Derry City Council safety wardens who are in doing a wee talk today to provide some safety stuff to people also.
01:06And can you tell me what it's like for you personally, the Belfast community like this?
01:11I just love it, I love it.
01:13I've worked for Inspire now since 2003, so 21 years and I've moved about and met different people in different areas and now I'm back home in Derry and it's fantastic, it's so rewarding.
01:26The people are fantastic, you have good crack every day and I just can't say enough positive stuff about it.
01:44My name is Declan MacDonald and I'm a project worker with Inspire Wellbeing.
01:48Can you tell me a wee bit about Inspire Wellbeing please?
01:51Inspire Wellbeing is a community wellbeing service for adult mental health services.
01:56We support people with enduring mental health problems, mental health illness and intellectual disabilities and autism as well as addictions.
02:05This is our 65th birthday this year and 35 years in Derry so we're celebrating this year the service.
02:15And what's it like today? You've opened the day, can you tell me what it's like having everybody come in?
02:20Well it's a bit more hectic today I suppose, we're trying to expand the service and put ourselves out there and we're allowing people to sort of view what we do on a day to day basis.
02:30And I suppose it's changed a good spotlight on us and it's a positive thing for us today.
02:35We can show people what we have on offer and it's not easy to come in through the front door sometimes with people, it is challenging.
02:44Somebody's dealing with anxiety and other mental health issues but we try to be very friendly in our approach and very warm and welcome to people.
02:51Open our arms, warm and welcome to people and that's about it really.
02:55Can you tell me how important a place like this is, especially nowadays when things are, people say it's a little more difficult to get by nowadays.
03:03I think it's a key point, mental health in general is quite a black spot in this area, it's been like that for a while.
03:10Many people complain of societal changes, they complain of financial reasons or addiction issues.
03:16Personally I think a lot of this is to do with generational trauma, a lot of people haven't been able to deal with their past and the past and specifically their troubles.
03:25I think it's another line of factor with a lot of things but what I've noticed from when I started working here two years ago is a lot of people are able to come in and explore that and benefit from the services we have on offer.
03:35We have a variety of activities and wellbeing groups and some sort of form of counselling too, like you know on a one-to-one support basis and you can see that's been very beneficial for people.
03:45Have you seen that personally, help somebody maybe in their mental health journey?
03:51Well like I say, we run a men's wellbeing group, I run it myself on a Monday morning and the stories that I've gathered from it and the experiences of the men that went on to, we're finding a lot of peer support from it.
04:04I've seen personally that people have been benefited from the assistance we've given them, they've developed a close bond with the members of each other.
04:13I suppose personally I've seen that the help we've provided, I would say that they've definitely been able to stabilise their mental health and they understand about emotions and wellbeing and keeping well.
04:24Would you say that's a strong sign of this, that people get to meet other people who might be going through something similar?
04:30I think that is a good point I'd say because peer support is a key thing that's been able to develop through the service.
04:37We run different activities and structured programmes around that, but the drop-in element has allowed people to develop relationships and build rapport with each other.
04:44I've seen that over the last two years definitely and hope to continue to see it in the future.
04:49Is it important for you to work on something, do you have a personal attachment to it?
04:54I think I have developed that now since I began working here, yes. I think mental health and supporting people with mental health is a key thing for me in developing my career aspirations,
05:04but also just knowing that I'm doing something positive for the community at large.
05:07It's something that's very close to my heart and it's something that I have a lot of experience with personally, so I know how important it is, yes.
05:24Hi, I've been here since June last year, so about a year and a half now.
05:37My name's Maureen.
05:39Maureen, can you tell me about your relationship to this place? Is it important to you? Have you gotten a lot of help here?
05:48Inspired here in the Derry has really changed my life, and I mean really changed it for the better, for the best.
05:56When I first came here, I'm not the person that came here. I'm the person that I always wanted to be.
06:05And if I was speaking when I first came here, you would have heard my voice at the Guildhall.
06:12And I never realised all my life how loud my voice was.
06:16And I also get on here that all my life I lived with horrors, nightmares, and sometimes my mood just goes up and down, up and down.
06:28And I learned how to control my mood. It was very important to me because of my children.
06:36And I've learned how to stand up for myself and say yes or no.
06:44I've learned how to communicate with other people.
06:52And a really most important thing I've found on here is trust.
06:58Any room we're all in, anybody in any room, they know when you go into the room what's said in the room, stays in the room.
07:07And even when we come out one day in our class, we don't mention what was done in that room.
07:13Everything is so confidential, and it's a very, very important thing.
07:19And I find on here the help that you get, I mean, it's just tremendous.
07:25They're there on the second.
07:28And no matter how busy they would be in the office, if one of us goes near that office door, they're off their chairs on the second.
07:36It doesn't matter what they're doing.
07:38They're so, so attentive.
07:41And I have to say Judith, our boss, Judith, we see it for ourselves.
07:49She really, really goes out of her way to get as much stuff for us to keep our minds occupied.
07:57And she does a lot for us in as many things as she can possibly get on here, courses.
08:06And every course, she gets something out of it, even if it's only one thing.
08:11But Judith also goes out of her way to make sure everybody's all right.
08:17And if you want to talk privately with one of the staff, you just have to say, can I have a word with you?
08:26And they say that even five minutes with a member of the staff.
08:31I think it's because they're actually a member of the staff and they're listening to you.
08:38And that's a very important thing.
08:41Because, I mean, I've spent 40 years going to counsellors and psychiatrists and the system was hopeless.
08:48Really, really bad.
08:50And it took me until I was 53 years of age for somebody to find out I have personality disorder and bipolar.
08:59And I was disgusted when I found out.
09:03Not of the stigma.
09:05It took that long for them to discover.
09:07Because my children had to suffer with me in depressions, bad moods, good moods.
09:13And I always felt really, really bad that my children had to suffer.
09:19But now I've learned that they just grew up with that.
09:24So I was just normal to them.
09:27And I always thought I was a burden and I should have been doing more, should have been calmer.
09:33But I've learned now to put that on the past.
09:37Because when I came on here, I came into a new life.
09:41And when I came into that new life, I actually realised I lived in a box with a lot of clothes.
09:49When I see coming out of that box, see doing this course DBT, I actually feel myself slowly coming out of that box.
09:58And I'll say one more thing.
10:01In DBT you can get a hundred things.
10:06But there was one thing really stood out to me was the word STOP in big red letters.
10:13And now if my temper's really going a bit and those things come under my head and it's leaving me really bad tempered,
10:20now I can try and get the word STOP in front of me and that word works instantly.