Wellbeing and Recovery College
IRD Duhallow Wellbeing and Rec By SHANE MCHALE
Rural Community Health Worker
The Wellbeing & Recovery College is an exciting new initiative in Duhallow, which will have a significant impact on the mental health of our community. Recovery Education is set to roll out across Cork and Kerry in the next couple of years, and we are thrilled that the first green shoots of this work will be visible here in Duhallow. Adult education as a method of addressing mental health challenges has a long history around the world. Here in Ireland, the first Recovery College launched in Co. Mayo all the way back in 2014. In the years since, Recovery Colleges have spread into most corners of the country and have become an integral part of how we address mental health. An important aspect of the Wellbeing & Recovery College is the role of “Lived Experience”. Modules are facilitated by people who not only have academic qualifications, but also have lived experience of mental health issues. This means that students who attend the
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modules will do so knowing that the person facilitating the session has walked a similar road. Students of the IRD Duhallow Wellbeing & Recovery College will learn about what influences our mental health, self-management of our mental health and be empowered to live life to the fullest, no matter what our starting point is. This will in turn help to compliment and ease demand on our traditional Mental Health services and contribute to a Duhallow community that is resilient, educated and supportive of mental health issues. This is “prevention is better than cure” put into practice in our community. But what makes this different to what we’ve experienced before, and how does it all work? Having worked in Mayo Recovery College for a number of years in the past, hopefully I can answer some common questions: Who is it for? You, me and everyone around us! I can confidently say that there is no one in our community who would not benefit from attending the Wellbeing & Recovery College.
That may sound like a bold statement, but we are all well aware of the mental health needs of our community. Even if we don’t live with mental health issues ourselves, we almost certainly know someone who does and want to be better able to support them. We also know that learning about maintaining our wellbeing is crucial for being prepared for life challenges. We don’t have to wait for something to go wrong to take care of ourselves! Students: Attendees of the Wellbeing & Recovery College are not “Service Users” or “Patients”, they are students, like any other students taking part in any other adult educational course in IRD Duhallow. Everyone joins of their own choice and for their own reasons. Whether they choose to disclose those reasons is entirely up to themselves. There are no exams, no homework, and students themselves decide how often they wish to attend, whether it be one module, all of them, or any number in between. Recovery Orientated: Recovery is a word we might associate with physical illness, or
DiscoverDuhallow@irdduhallow.com
Issue 145 August 8th, 2025