“Jigsaw really cares about young people.”
I have been involved with Jigsaw Roscommon, as a member of the Youth Advisory Committee, for 2 years now and I will be for many more years. I love the work I get to do through it because in the last 4 years I’ve lost 2 friends to suicide and another to a road accident and I’ve seen what this has done to the young people in my school and community. There’s no help out there even though were always promised it. So hopefully by working with Jigsaw those services will be put in place and accessible when needed.
Too many young people suffer with mental health issues. It's very hard for them to get help because of long waiting lists and there being no adequate service for people aged 16/17. Adults services aren’t appropriate to this age group.
So over the last few years I have been working with Tommy our Jigsaw Project Manager to move Roscommon Jigsaw from the planning phase through to implementation. So we’ve spent a lot of time looking at what are the main areas we need to work on and the big one we’ve encountered is the stigma around mental health in Co. Roscommon. So in December 2009 we had a balloon launch to try and start raising awareness of Jigsaw Roscommon, and we also handed out leaflets in the county town. This actually turned out to be challenging as we were given some really negative feedback when trying to give people the leaflets, with one commenting to me “I’m not crazy”.
I attended meetings in Dublin: with the Headstrong board to secure our funding, and with the Minister for mental health to get him to agree to fund a clinical co-ordinator post for the project.
Thankfully I was asked to represent the young people at the Project Manager post interviews as the project believe that having a young person's input is of the utmost importance.
We are currently doing a course with NUI Galway on Youth Leadership and Community Development. We are all really enjoying this, we are also using this to plan our Think Big projects.
About a year ago I started on Headstrong’s Youth Advisory Panel. I have undertaken a youth leadership training course, and been involved in filming and editing positive mental health short videos. With Headstrong I am more likely to be travelling around the country I have had weekends of training in Galway, Dublin, Kerry and Cavan just to name a few. We are also in the process of trying out mindfulness training which has never been done in Ireland before, so we will be feeding back to the rest of the country in Dublin castle in May of this year.
I enjoy my involvement very much. I get to meet loads of new people and try new things. I plan to stay involved with both for as long as I can. One of the main reasons I love being involved is because what I have to say is important and seen as being important, it is not tokenistic. Jigsaw really cares about young people.
Story by: Tanya, Youth Advisory Committee member
