A suicide prevention charity based in the Colin area have launched a new programme aimed at promoting the mental wellbeing of young people.

West Wellbeing, located in the Dairy Farm Centre on the Stewartstown Road, celebrated their first birthday this week and have been providing vital counselling and mental health services since their formation. 

Alix Magowan-Wlton, Youth Project Coordinator at West Wellbeing, explained the thinking behind the new project.

“We sat down during the summer and looked at what the needs are, particularly in West Belfast where we’re based, but we want to be province-wide," he said. "As the project was launched, I was writing and rewriting. I have written three programmes called Well Girl, Well Guy and Well Online. 

“The online one is about your emotional and mental wellbeing while using the internet. It’s aimed at young people and talks a lot about social media, the dangers of social media, living for the likes and finding your value in that rather than just internet safety. So it’s looking at how we can differently approach it. It’s giving young people the tools to say maybe I am spending too much time on this and noticing how they feel when they’re using it.”

Well Girl and Well Guy are two personal development programmes with one tailored towards girls and the other for boys aimed at young people from the age of ten and above.

“The three core elements in the six-week programmes are – I am, I have and I can,” continues Alix. "The first couple of weeks looks at our value, our self-worth, our self-esteem and building that foundation up – for example, I am worth looking after, I am worth making good decisions for because I am valuable.

“A lot of the issues that young people are coming up against actually stem right back to their self-esteem, self-worth, their value and place within community. So it’s looking at tha which is the very foundational concept of everything we do."

After the first few weeks, the programme then moves on to the other concepts, as Alix explains.

“Then we move into ‘I have’, so we look at tools and strategies to manage our mental and emotional wellbeing. We look at managing emotion, particularly with stronger emotions like anxiety, fear, anger. The last section is ‘I can’ so we look at our purpose, our dreams, our goals what are they, are they appropriate, and how can we reach them. We try and set them up for their future and what we can do today to help achieve their goals in the future. It’s a process, it’s a journey.”

The six-week programme, which takes place in small groups, is being delivered at West Wellbeing as well as schools in the area.

“I am delivering four different programmes; we have one here in West Wellbeing and it’s for the girls who have gone through this service or are connected to our service,” says Alix.

“We’re on week five this week and just watching them grow from the first week, being timid, barely talking, to having community and being friends outside the group. That in itself is a gift. I always say if the young person just takes one thing away from the six weeks that they have been with me then that’s just amazing. 

“I’m delivering the programme in the schools as well so I’m in the Christ Redeemer Primary School at the minute with P7s and in St Colm’s High School as well doing a girls' programme and a boys' programme.

“Our hope and our dream for this project is that it’ll be a unique service that hits right at the core of what our young people are facing today and they don’t have to struggle alone. My dream for what we are doing here is that these programmes will be part of the curriculum and that our young people will be taught this and that we be in a position to train professionals to deliver this to the young people that they are working with so that everybody has the tools and equipment to deliver it.

“We want it to be part of the culture, just as a young person is taught to brush their teeth and keep their hygiene and physical health well, mental health and emotional wellbeing should be part of the curriculum too – it’s absolutely paramount.”