ETBI-News-Summer-2016-web

Miltown Malbay Youthreach Takes
Part in YSI Life Time Lab Cork
By Elaine Tubridy, LCETB Miltown Malbay
In Life Time Lab Cork, ten project
teams recently took part in a
Dragon’s Den-style pitch to a Young
Social Innovators (YSI) Panel for a share
of a €15k social innovation fund. The
fund was created to assist teams to
implement their innovative ideas to bring
about positive change and increase the
impact of their project work. Some also
requested mentorship and support from
the YSI Dragons in specialised areas
such as marketing and finance.
The initiative challenges young people
to work within their communities to
identify areas of social need and to
come up with and implement solutions
for positive social change. The
teams pitching at this year’s YSI Den
addressed a range of social issues
including mental health, nutrition,
homophobia, road safety and addiction.
Three students from Youthreach
Miltown Malbay, Megan McInerney,
Reese Hallett and Martin Mongan,
travelled to Cork to pitch their YSI
project to the YSI panel.
The title of the Milltown Malbay YSI
project is “Life is not about waiting
for the storm to pass but learning to
dance in the rain”. This project came
about as a result of:
most importantly: “Suicide does not
have to be a permanent solution to
a temporary problem.”
The YSI class focused on what
they wanted to achieve: to raise
awareness about mental health,
positive coping skills and support
services that young people could
contact.
The YSI project developed into asking
the questions, “What can we do as
an YSI team to address and raise
awareness? How can we get young
people to become more aware of their
feelings, identify positive coping skills
and provide support service numbers if
they need help in their lives?”
The team’s plan to address this
was to design, develop and create a
“checklist card” that young people can
use to become more aware of how
they are feeling by asking themselves
key questions, and which lists positive
coping skills that a young person could
use in their lives to deal with issues,
as well as contact numbers and details
for support services that young people
could access.
This YSI project was created by young
people, for young people. The team
worked hard in identifying coping skills
and key questions in their checklist card
that they hope young people will honestly
answer to themselves about how they are
really feeling. It is their hope to help and
inform, if only one person, that there is
help available; there is a more positive
way of coping with what is going on their
life at that time.
The YSI project received support from
local organisations and services,
including North Clare Mental Health
Association, Samaritans, Youthreach
counsellor, West Clare Taking Care, and
Clare Suicide Bereavement support
group.
Overall it was a very successful day for
the three students; they were awarded
€€400 from the YSI panel to go towards
funding the checklist card and make
their YSI goals a reality. They scored
very high marks in their pitch and were
commended for their project title and the
positive change that it will bring about in
the community.
Research carried out with a number
of Youthreach centres in Clare and
Limerick which identified possible
supports and coping skills (positive
and negative) that young people use.
A response to a remembrance of
hope service that we had in the
Miltown Malbay centre, at which a
former Youthreach student on our
programme who died by suicide was
remembered. His mother made an
impact through the words she said;
LCETB Miltown Malbay Youthreach students
50 ETBI issue 3 – 2016 Section 2 | news