A modern-day Mayo Mental Health Service describes a spectrum of services that extends from positive mental health to severe and disabling mental illness. The goal of modern 21st Century mental health services is also to promote the mental health of our population in collaboration with other services. The services work closely with various agencies within the community such as Mayo Mental Health Association, Mindspace Mayo, Aware, Grow, Dolmen Club, Shine etc. including reducing the loss of life by suicide. The Mental Health Services in Mayo recognise that investment in community-level supports, and interventions, improve health outcomes for all populations. They also provide access to talk therapies and signpost services through their website, WestBeWell and other social media sites.
At this time, most people within the county can have their mental health problems treated by their GP and referred to Mayo Mental Health Services if symptoms become severe. Mayo Mental Health Services provide a wide range of community and hospital-based mental health services, and these services have seen dramatic changes and developments over the past 150 years. These changes continued down through the years as we moved from the traditional hospital/institutional model to providing more care in communities and in clients’ own homes. The modern Mayo Mental Health Service comprises an acute inpatient unit and community-based mental health teams (Child and Adolescent Mental Health, General Adult, Mental health of Intellectual Disability and Psychiatry of Old Age). They also provide day hospitals, training centres, outpatient clinics, continuing care settings and community residential services. They also offer certain sub-specialities within the main specialities, including rehabilitation and recovery, liaison psychiatry, perinatal psychiatry, and memory assessment.
The Community-based Mental Health Services are coordinated and delivered through Community Mental Health Teams (CMHTs), designed to serve the needs of particular care groups across the lifespan from childhood to later life. Within this multidisciplinary team is a range of skilled professionals, e.g., Medical, Nursing, Occupational Therapists, Psychologists, Social workers, Pharmacists, Dieticians and support staff who combine their unique expertise to provide integrated care to service users in the context of their local community. The services are now based on clinical excellence and a belief that all people can recover from mental illness. The services are also based on a recovery framework that includes clinical and personal recovery for those who experience mental ill-health.
The lived experience and insights of people with mental health issues and their families are also at the heart of the services. It centres on the aspirations and needs of people with mental ill-health. In that regard, the services have an Area Lead for Mental Health Engagement and Recovery. Mayo Mental Health services also employ peer support workers, family peer support workers, and education staff who have lived experience and deliver recovery education for staff and the general population through Recovery College Mayo GMIT.
Community-based Approach
As mentioned earlier, Mayo Mental Health Services collaborates and works closely with many different agencies within the wider community. Agencies such as Mayo Mental Health Association, Mindspace Mayo, AWARE, GROW and Shine provide a different level of support within the community that aims to complement and build on what is already available within the Mental Health Services.
Mayo Mental Health Association, for example, supports the community through their 4 main pillars of work: Information Centres, Schools’ Education Programme, Health Promotion and Social Housing. Mayo Mental Health Association is a non-clinical service but does act as a directory of services should anyone be living/supporting someone with a mental health difficulty. They do this through their Information Centres which are located in both Castlebar and Ballina.
In relation to the Schools’ Education Programme, the Association works in partnership with Mindspace Mayo, Mental Health Ireland and NUI Galway on a Social and Emotional Learning programme called Mind Out. This programme ensures that the consistent delivery of a mental health and wellbeing programme is seen within the post-primary school system across Mayo. A number of other Mental Health Promotion projects are also carried out throughout the year within the wider community, for example, Moving Your Mind, Breathe, Woodlands for Health, and many more. The fourth and final pillar of work that is covered by the Mayo Mental Health Association is Social Housing. This is a very important aspect of the work carried out both within the Mental Health Services and the community. Good quality accommodation is provided to residents who would be hoping to move out of the services and into independent living. This project aims to help the services move away from congregated settings and feeds into the recovery framework which includes clinical and personal recovery for those who experience mental ill-health.