Aiming to rewrite the book on mental health matters

Una D'Arcy"When young people are afraid, they keep it to themselves. Bullying, exclusion, stress, pressure to be popular; stress to have the latest things. No-one talks about it. You keep it to yourself and never let people know you have problems."This is 16-year-old Cy Cleary, describing why Comhairle na nÓg has chosen positive mental health as its project for 2011. The executive has already organised and run a national youth conference in April, which attracted 220 young people from all over Ireland. The invitation to the event sent to schools included the message "come if you are interested in building positive mental health for young people"."Lisa Butterly came to our conference and spoke to us about how, as a young person, she suffers from poor mental health," said Cy. "She told us about her life, her experiences, times when she self-harmed. But she offered us hope too. What she was saying made sense. We could understand her and why she felt she couldn't reach out. We also saw that help is there and you can get better."Cy is part of a group of young people who, as a result of the conference, are working with Mental Health Ireland to recreate the book, Mental Health Matters, in a way that is more accessible to young people."The reason we understood what Lisa was saying was because she spoke the same language as us. We felt what she felt, we saw how she reached out to us and when she opened up, we recognised a lot of the problems she said she was facing.""We want Mental Health Matters to have younger people's experiences, we want it to be easier for us to read and we want it to translate into our lives. Mental health is important, so why is not important enough to speak to us in a language we understand?" asks Cy.Cy also believes that many teenagers feel helpless when they face resolving important, relevant issues and would like to be able to do more."We would like to create the book for young people and also receive training so that we can go back into our schools and deliver training in mental health," he says.Peer training and peer support have been identified as important when trying to get messages across to young people, whether it is about underage drinking, drug taking, speeding or mental health. It takes great courage and confidence to speak up within your peer group and it is difficult to put yourself out there. Our hope is that the book will be adopted by Mental Health Ireland and be available nationally in time," said Annette Barr-Jordan of Westmeath County Council.Last year, the Comhairle produced a booklet on the issues surrounding alcohol abuse which was adopted by the Department of Education and rolled out nationwide.The workshops to recreate the Mental Health Matters book into a young person's guide to mental health is on September 16 and 17.