Aware Email Newsletter #1

In the debut issue of the Aware email newsletter, we catch up on Aware news and events (including our newly-published 2009 Annual Report), look ahead to the Women's Mini-Marathon on June 7th and look back on the organisation's 25-year history (so far) through the eyes of a long-time Aware volunteer. We also tell you what's new on Aware.ie.

If you haven't already done so, you can sign up to receive every issue by email at the bottom of this page (click here to skip down). We hope you enjoy it - and please leave a comment below to let us know what you think.

Aware Annual Report 2009

Last week our latest annual report was published, summarising our key activity for 2009 and our plans for 2010 and beyond. Some of the key facts and stats:

Our telephone helpline received almost 14,000 calls last year (the exact figure was 13,923). As expected, January was the busiest month, with 1,538 calls, almost a third above the average monthly figure.

Demand for our secondary school Beat the Blues programme continued to be strong, with many schools welcoming the talk back for the fourth or fifth year in succession. We plan to further expand the programme's reach in the 2010-11 school year.

More than 30 new volunteers were trained for the Aware Helpline in 2009, with more currently undergoing training. We are also in the process of retraining some existing volunteers to cope with the increased demand for our email support service. (Information on volunteering.)

At the end of last year, we decided to develop our ASIST course by offering it to relatives of those who have previously attempted suicide or are at high risk of suicidal ideation. ASIST has always been very well received and it is hoped that we can continue to provide this training where it is most needed.

News

 While there's still time to get involved, most of our Walk4Aware events have now taken place. The series will return next year, when we hope to get even more people involved. Donation totals so far include €1,167 (Anne Leonard, Murvagh Beach), €574.50 (Fintan Wallis, Aghada), €2,528.60 (Sinead Fox, Ballyshannon) and €1,300 (Marie MacFarlane and Mary O'Keeffe, Schull). Massive thanks to all our local organisers, our walkers all around the country and everyone who supported them.

 Details of our June lecture, taking place on Wednesday June 9th, are now online.

 Welcome home, Fearghal and Simon, who recently completed the first Irish circumnavigation of the globe by bike in aid of Aware. See below for the slideshow of the Homecoming Cycle or visit our online sponsorship page to support their epic journey.



 As part of our Walk4Aware series, the Dublin Sketchers group took to the streets in support of Aware, participating in a sponsored sketchcrawl that even took in the Aware national office on Leeson St. Explore their blog for some of the drawings from the day itself or support them on the Aware SponsorMe site (ends May 31st).

Women's Mini-Marathon - June 7th

New entries have now closed for the Flora Dublin Mini-Marathon, which takes place on June 7th (Bank Holiday Monday). However, if you've already booked your place, it's not too late to support our work by collecting sponsorship. Call 01-6617211 or email fundraising@aware.ie to get a sponsorship card.

In fact, thanks to a prize draw from FIAT, 5 lucky winners will receive an extra €500 each to donate to their nominated charity. More details on FIAT's Facebook page.

New to Aware.ie

 We launched our current site in mid-February of this year, but that doesn't mean we've stopped adding to it. While it's easy to see the latest posts in our News and Events section, it's not always as easy in other sections. See below for some of the things we've been working on recently. And remember, you can also find us on Facebook, Flickr, Twitter or Vimeo for more news and updates.

 One thing we've been working hard on is ways to provide emotional support for those suffering with depression (and their families) online. We're already offering depression support by email, and our new Discussion Board is now fully built and tested. It will be available publicly in a couple of weeks. We're also putting an online application in place to offer online depression support groups. These will initially be tested in a pilot phase before launching fully later this summer.

 Where possible, we try to make notes from our monthly lecture series available online, as well as Aware leaflets and information booklets. These can be an invaluable resource for information on bipolar disorder, self-help techniques, postnatal depression, depression medication and more. Our Literature section now allows all booklets to be viewed easily online while our Archived Lectures section contains new lecture notes on cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), depression in adolescents, media stigma and more.

 After a period offline during the changeover to our new site, the Aware Online Store has since returned to the site. If you knew the old website shop, hopefully you'll appreciate the difference; if you didn't, then see what the new one has to offer. With books, CDs, self-help works, information booklets and more covering all aspects of depression and mental health illness, it's an invaluable resource.

25 years of Aware - a volunteer remembers

In the Spring issue of the Aware quarterly magazine, long-time Aware volunteer Padraig Allen recalled his experience of Aware's first quarter of a century. You can subscribe to the Aware magazine in our Online Store.

Aware: the First 25 years
A Personal Perspective

By Pádraig Allen

As the title of this article states, this is a purely personal recollection of the first quarter century of Aware and any omission of persons or events are a reflection on my power of recall! I am totally conscious that many of you readers will have memories of events of equal or indeed greater significance.

It all began with the establishment of the Mood Disorder Fellowship of Ireland in 1985. The rationale for the Fellowship was the total misunderstanding of both the patients and families and friends who were diagnosed with depression in its varying forms. It was then very much a revolving door phenomenon. Within weeks of discharge from hospital in a reasonably stable condition, sufferers were back in hospital within a significant number, having decided that now they were ‘well’, they no longer needed the ‘tablets’! This pattern was causing huge difficulties, not just for the sufferers, but also for their families and others who cared for them.

Another major issue at the time was of course stigma – a total lack of understanding of the fact that mood disorder was an illness of varying severity, but it was just that, an illness which responded to appropriate intervention, just as other medical conditions like kidney or cardiac complaints did. However the ‘Valley of the Squinting Windows’ syndrome very much attached itself to all forms of mental illness. For this reason, the founders of the Mood Disorder Fellowship decided that the provision of information on depression in the form of lectures and publicity in all the various media was essential.

For my own part, I was too unwell to benefit from the Fellowship in those early days, but I can look back with pride on the fact that I attended a group in 1987 in the then Music Room in St. Patrick’s Hospital, which became the first Aware group.

For me this group became very much an oasis in the desert. I was able to share for the first time my own experiences with others who had come through the same mill. We learned how to support one another. We learned about symptoms. We learned what to do if things were going awry – things as basic as making contact with the doctor or Health Centre where we were attending, before things got totally out of control. This was particularly important for those of us who had bipolar disorder, who were invariably the last people to realise that we were not as well as we thought we were.

After the support groups and the Monthly Lectures, the Aware magazine and a helpline followed, and all these activities are an integral part of Aware in 2010. All of these are characterised by a huge voluntary effort with a very large volunteer base. Head and shoulders above all was our first facilitator Dr Pat McKeon, the founding chairman of Aware. The drive, commitment and vision displayed by Dr McKeon has resulted in Aware now being recognised as the leading mental health charity in Ireland. In addition Aware has benefited hugely form the ongoing supports given to it by St Patrick’s Hospital, who in fact provided us with our very first ‘office’ and phone line.

As I write this I also remember the work of Anne Marie Butler, Dymphna Brennan, Mary Donohue (the first editor of the Aware Magazine), Julie and Derek Healy, Helen Sheehan, Rick Quinn and Mary Moore. It is appropriate to remember here some of those who have passed on, people like Gerard Ryan. I know that they have found peace – somewhere over the rainbow.

In more recent years chairpersons like Ger Bailey and Annette Byrne have given unstintingly to the cause of Aware, as have indeed the thousands of volunteers who work so hard for Daisy Days and many other fundraising initiatives.

Despite our successes, much remains to be done. In the last week in January, official figures were announced which confirmed that 238 people had died of suicide in the first half of 2009 – an appalling vista. As we journey through the economic winter which has befallen us, these statistics can only worsen.

As for stigma, it is still alive and well but you the reader can have a role here. Do you think, having come through depression, that when you are well, you can contribute to the normalisation of mental health by speaking up in your own dignified way and showing that depression is what it is: an illness, but a very manageable illness?

We must also reach out to the thousands of sufferers who do have not yet reached Aware. They must be given the message that they too can be helped.

Finally, I sincerely hope that whoever will be writing to record the second quarter century of Aware, will be able to testify that the success of the next 25 years which we find ourselves on the cusp of now, will have matched its progress in the first 25 years.

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