Ireland’s first Out of Hours Mental Health Café Highly Valued by its Customers
On Monday 10th June, 2024 the University of Limerick published its’ evaluation findings on the Galway Community Café in the Galway Bay Hotel. The Café is Irelands first Peer Led, out of hours Mental Health Café Service for adults – peer led meaning that the service is provided by trained staff who have lived experience of recovery from mental health challenges.
This innovative service is not only provided by people with experience of mental health distress and recovery, it was also developed by people with experience of availing of mental health services. As noted by Thom Stewart, one of the founders of the service, “You have to start from the end and work backwards. Once you know where you need to end up, you can then start your journey, knowing that when you are done, you have created something meaningful”. This is very evident in the findings of University of Limerick’s research, which found that customers highly valued (73.72%) the support they received from Café staff, as stated by one of the customers involved in the research, “It helped me in a time of crisis when I couldn’t access psychiatric services out of hours”.
Top L-R: Lolo Eilian (HSE), Lisa Cuthbert (MHI), Maria McGoldrick (MHER), John Canny (HSE), Front L-R: Dr. James Turner (Sheffield Hallam University), Dr. Louise Murphy (University of Limerick), David Bohan (Galway Community Café), Dr. Owen Doody (University of Limerick)
Another key finding highlighted that customers highly valued the peer relationship established with the café staff (92.7%), “The peer support was tremendous especially during a catastrophic time in my life”, whilst another customer stated that “The Café is unique in the sense that it’s not a client-Dr relationship but a community relationship…it’s away from the hospital and no one is going to spook you out”.
Café customers also highly valued the non-clinical setting that the service is provided in. Located in Mr. Waffle, which is a well-established Galway eatery during the day, proprietor, Kevin Nugent kindly provides his Café to the mental health service in the evenings. Customers welcomed this comforting environment, stating “Having Mr. Waffle breaks the stigma…It’s a brilliant location…it’s not institutional”. As reinforced by Dr. Louise Murphy and Dr. Owen Doody, University of Limerick and Co-Principle Investigators of this research, “Customers expressed that the café fostered a safe, relaxed, non-judgmental social space to connect with others, giving a sense of empowerment, community, belonging”.
Dr. James Turner, Associate Professor/Subject Group Lead Mental Health Nursing, Sheffield Hallam University, flew in from the UK to attend the event expressed, “The Galway Community Café Service is an international example of excellence. When I first read about the service provided in the Café, how it was genuinely co-produced and peer led is an approach that needs to be adopted widely when developing meaningful recovery orientated mental health services”. Dr. Turner commended the Café Staff and the Project Lead, Maria McGoldrick for their hard work and commitment in developing such an invaluable service.
Members of the local Galway Forum
Maria McGoldrick, Project Lead and Area Lead for Mental Health Engagement in HSE Community Healthcare West, thanked everyone that has been involved in developing & delivering the Café service; notably, the Head of Mental Health Services, Charlie Meehan for sponsoring and believing in this service; their community partners Mental Health Ireland; Kevin Nugent, proprietor of Mr Waffle and most importantly, the individuals who used their lived experience of mental health distress and recovery to develop such an excellent much needed service in Ireland.
Closing the event Ms McGoldrick stated, “This is a very emotional day for me and indeed many people in this room. It has been a long journey but knowing that we are genuinely meeting the needs of our peers in distress has made all that hard work worth it. There is more work to do as we will continue to listen to our community and develop our service based on those needs. We are making a difference”.
“Our service has been integrated into the National Crisis Resolution Model of Care that is being rolled out in a phased basis across the country. We should be proud of ourselves today and what we have achieved”.
Ms McGoldrick ended by encouraging anyone in the Galway community that may be experiencing mental health difficulties, to contact www.galwaycommunitycafe.ie for support.
