Mental Health Local Initiatives STEP/Surestart
| STEP/Surestart |
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Background of STEP S.T.E.P. (South Tyrone Empowerment Programme) is a community development and training organisation based in Dungannon and established in 1997. Organisational aim to provide development and training opportunities for the most marginalised areas, groups and individuals in the Dungannon and South Tyrone area. Current departments include Footprint Training, Interpreter & Translation Services, Community development, Other Services and a Migrant Workers Support Project which has operated since 2001 providing a Migrant Support Centre, ESOL training, Employment Advice, Community activities etc. Many services are now provided across Northern Ireland.
Surestart is a government funded project which aims to work with parents-to-be, parents and children to promote the physical, intellectual, social and emotional development of pre-school children to ensure they can flourish at home and when they get to school. Dungannon Sure Start covers Dungannon Town, Moygashel Granville and Coalisland South. Services offered include Midwifery Service, Health Visitor, Family Support Workers, Speech & Language Therapists, Occupational Therapists, Oral Health Promotion Facilitator and Crèche Workers.
The two organisations have an existing partnership in that STEP sits on the Management Board of Surestart and employ the bi-lingual family support workers who work out of Surestart to deliver services to the Migrant Worker families living in the areas covered by Dungannon Surestart.
“Stress Management Therapies for Migrant Worker Mothers”
To access the Migrant Community to promote positive mental health.
STEP was approached by the Mental Health Promotion Officer to gain access to the Migrant Community as a target group which missed out on access to Mental Health services and support. The specific audience for this project was Migrant Worker mothers or mothers-to-be (Polish and Portuguese) already partaking in English classes at Surestart.
As STEP had already delivered a “Stress Management Therapies” programme to a different target group, STEP’s Social Work placement student, Florence Smiton, was able to develop a programme based on the existing one and engage with therapists to deliver a programme for the Migrant Worker mother group. Florence took on the role of managing the project and STEP Training & Learning (STL) were able to provide Interpreters for the project. As the timescale for running the programme was limited, recruitment for the programme came under the role of Surestart who had groups of Polish and Portuguese woman undertaking training. Surestart were also able to provide access to a venue which provided childcare for participants during the programme which eliminated childcare costs fro participants.
A therapist spoke to the group about identifying stress, the support and advice available to anyone suffering from stress or mental health issues, suggesting methods of coping with stress and introducing the programme.
Week 2 – The group were given a demonstration by an Indian Head Massage therapist and were shown how to use on themselves and children
Week 3 – The group were given a demonstration on Reflexology – this therapy presented some issues including the therapist suggesting that it should not be used by expectant or breastfeeding mothers (of which there were many in the group) and because participants were slightly inhibited by the use of feet in this therapy.
Week 4 – The group were introduced to aromatherapy as a relaxation method. They were shown how to identify different oils for different uses and user-friendly ways of using the therapy.
Up to 18 participants took part in the therapy sessions which provided a social learning experience for the group of Portuguese and Polish speaking mothers. The provision of quality childcare on site meant that the women could relax and enjoy the experiences each week. The overall ratings of the venue, trainer, exercises used by the participants had a majority of “good” or “very good” selections and some feedback comments included “I adored the relaxation” and “i would like to know about the whole context of learning”.
Further partnership work – this project and other partnership work demonstrates the co-effectiveness of Dungannon Surestart and S.T.E.P.
– participants made comments that suggested they would be interested in further learning around mental health issues “It would help much more if this subject is more developed, more in detail. This includes getting any books available” and “I would like to know more about treatment about pharmaceutical medicine for depression”. There is a level of interested created in an area previously untapped. Areas such as post natal depression and bullying should be investigated in terms of the target groups served by the organisation. In previous years organisations have been “firefighting” basic problems encountered by Migrant Worker Families, we are now at a stage where services could be extended and more complex issues tackled. We can now look fro similar funding for these types of projects.
As some therapies not suitable for pregnant/breastfeeding women, if running the programme again the therapies and target audience would have to be closely examined.
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