 Here we are for Wednesday afternoon. Now where is currently looking for new volunteers to help to deliver their support services and also they want to announce that they've got a whole range of free positive mental health programs that are open for registration and they get underway at the end of this month. The director of services with where Stephen McBride joins us now Stephen how are you? Good thanks John good afternoon lovely to be here. Yeah good to talk to you. First of all first of all the programs Stephen I suppose and they're equally important and there's a number of different programs and they're about to get underway at the end of the month. Just just remind us I suppose remind us first of all about what AWARE do. So AWARE we're a national mental health charity nearly 40 years on the road we were set up in 1985 and we're a volunteer led organization and what we do is we provide support services to people who are experiencing depression bipolar disorder and other mood related conditions and in those support services there are support groups there's support line service and there's other educational programs that we offer to people who are experiencing depression to support them to work through those experiences. Briefly go through some of the programs now that we're chatting about that are about to start and one of them is a life skills group program what's that? So that life skills group program John is a six week program run on consecutive weeks for 90 minutes each session which allows people to come into a shared environment with other people who are experiencing maybe mild or moderate depression or people may be looking to change some aspects of their lives that aren't necessarily working from them because the program specifically allows people to learn and develop new tools to cope with the challenges of everyday life that we all experience. So it's a very practical program as I say run over six weeks that allows people maybe to change some of the unhelpful or unhealthy thinking styles that we all can experience and to shift some of the behaviors around that so it's very practical and there's a great learning environment in that program for people who are who are experiencing mental health challenges. Ways to change things before it gets serious. Exactly yeah so early intervention and that's one of the big mantras I suppose in terms of mental health generally you know around whether it's within the statutory services or with ourselves at a where we always kind of promote that message that if a person kind of doesn't pretend that the problem will go away by itself and if you take action as early as possible that can as it were nip things in the bud. There's another program for relatives and friends of people who might be experiencing mental health problems and this is a very important program to us because very often a person who's in a relationship whether it's your child your partner your parent who's experiencing depression the person who's in that relationship is often the neglected or forgotten voice. So this program allows for people to come again into a learning space where they can listen to other people describe some of their experiences and the impact of depression on a person's relationship and most crucially John it allows people to learn new tools and new skills how to cope you know and learning to cope with the problems that can come into a relationship when there's depression or mental health difficulties and how to care for yourself because that forgotten or neglected voice can end up leading to its own mental health difficulties in and of itself. So that four-week program run for 90 minutes is a great little program to allow people to learn and develop those skills about self-care. And Stephen you also have a program that's dedicated to living well with bipolar. Yeah so obviously one of the the core population of people we work with and I where was set up to work with is people who experience and have a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. So that living well with bipolar disorder program is an eight-week program run again over 90 minutes on consecutive weeks you know at the same day and the same time for people with the diagnosis and the condition of bipolar to come and really learn those kind of skills tools and ideas of how to manage the condition as effectively as possible. And again really what we find in that program and a lot of the testimonials we get is that people coming coming out of that reducing stigma and also the idea that people in are able to speak together about what it's like to live with bipolar and we really promote the message that you can live well with bipolar even though we recognize that it's a serious mental health condition for any person to be diagnosed with. It's about managing these conditions and it's about learning how to how to live and how to cope with them and also I suppose as we mentioned earlier then having programs for relatives and friends for them to be able to cope. Exactly John you know the idea really is how to manage them as effectively as possible and sometimes that isn't possible so the idea that we all don't cope well all the time and that's very real and live to us all in our lives. So it's trying to normalize that as well and trying to de-stigmatize or take some of the shame that may be carried by people who are living with depression or living with bipolar disorder away and we believe that in the support of positive mental health programs that that can happen. You say that the programs are in a collective environment in person in some cases but for the most part over zoom or online. Exactly and we found that even coming out of the pandemic you know in the last couple of years to do with the service delivery and people's interest there's still a strong desire for people to register for the programs from the comfort of their own home at a time that suits them that they don't need to get into the car or use public transport to get to the venues where we had been running the programs. So we're meeting the demand where it's at and people are very interested especially in these winter months of being able to to log on to the programs from the comfort of their own home. So that's why we offer that online presence and also it really increases that accessibility you know for people who maybe don't have transport you know or people who don't want to leave their home and maybe because of depression finding it difficult to leave their home. So it's great it's been one of the positive dividends I would suggest of the pandemic in increasing accessibility to programs that we operate aware. Yeah and we've all become more aware of them and how to access them so I suppose it's important that the programs are delivered and as an accessible way as possible. Now there's volunteers needed not just for programs but more really about the support services that aware offer. Exactly John so the four support services that we offer and you know we are recruiting presently for three of them. So one of them is our support group service and the support group service is the foundation stone of aware back in 1985 you know and a support group volunteer will be there in a position to facilitate the groups that we offer. Half of our groups going back to that online offering point that I've just made take place via zoom you know so it's an online offering in general that we provide to people right across the country. Now we do have in-person groups in Dublin and in Cork some of the other major population centers but for people who are residing in in Dunigal and it's hinterland I would suggest that a support group volunteer if they were interested in coming forward for that you know would be via zoom you know full training and support is provided to any volunteer you know and we also really like to hear from volunteers from from all walks of life and none. Generally speaking people who are interested in volunteering with aware come from three kind of areas perhaps they have had a personal experience of a mental health difficulty perhaps they've had a loved one or a friend who's had that experience and then thirdly people who are interested in providing that support and help you know and are interested in that idea of helping another person through their experience of depression you know and also we really see that people maybe coming to a transition point in their life or heading towards retirement who maybe have a little bit more time or a thinking and January is no better time in the year than to be thinking about taking on something new maybe or that you might have some time to take on something new so if you think that that is you as you listen to this interview we'd be delighted to hear from you at AWARE to provide that support in the support groups and also another support service in which we're actively recruiting volunteers for is our support line service you know so support line volunteers we and receive close to 30,000 calls on a yearly basis to our support line from right across the country again full training and support is provided to any person who's interested in becoming a volunteer at AWARE so that those 30,000 calls can be answered as much as is possible on the support line and then the third service is our life skills program which is an online program it's different to the one I described a little minute ago but that's an online program for volunteers to support people through the written words so people log on to this program on our website and our volunteers support them through that so if anyone listening to this conversation is interested in giving back or providing support to people who are experiencing depression and learning more from a personal perspective and a professional perspective you know please get in touch with us at AWARE you know we'd love to hear from you and have that conversation about becoming a volunteer with us and how do they get in touch would it be through the website through the website or through our email address so our email address is info at AWARE.ie and the website is AWARE.ie and then if you go on to the tab on the main web page which is work with us and you'll find your way into volunteering you know and if you click on to that all the information about registering your interest or sending an email to us or just inviting us to call you back and be delighted to have that initial conversation with you. Okay and if anyone's listening and think that they would like to volunteer or would like to help but they're a bit hesitant in coming forward it's important as opposed to remind them that full training is given. Exactly and that's a very good point John you know so full training is given and it's the very common thing for people to suggest I don't know if I might be able for that or up to that but very much so you know it's a very common thing when anyone's learning anything new to have an idea that you know as some aspect of doubt or concern well we will provide that full training and support and the very fact that you might be interested in doing it would suggest that you're able to do it you know and in a place to kind of show that interest and desire to support people who are experiencing mental health difficulties. Okay well the best look with it all and I hope that the drive to get more volunteers is successful and good luck with all those programs that we outlined at the start as well. Stephen McBride from AWARE thank you. Thank you very much John.