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A NEW PROFESSIONAL mental health service for teenagers in Ireland launched this week.
Turn2Me.org is an Irish website that has been offering adults who are experiencing mental health difficulties the facility to speak with trained mental health professionals online.
The website was first launched in 2009 by brothers Oisin and Diarmuid Scollard. The pair set out to create a new online platform for people struggling with mental health issues after their brother Cormac died by suicide in 2003.
Oisin Scollard told TheJournal.ie why they opted for an online platform.
“We’ve got 9-5pm mental health services in Ireland but it’s very hard to get into them… We wanted to do something that was online because online isn’t 9-5pm. Online has better availability for people, it breaks barriers down for people and it’s a lot more accessible,” Scollard told TheJournal.ie.
Since 2009, Turn2Me.org has seen massive success. In 2014, the service received HSE funding to offer 8 free online counselling sessions to users. Since then, the service has provided over 6,000 hours of counselling.
Turn2MeYouth
On the back of its success, the Scollard brothers are opening a new website, Turn2MeYouth.ie, focused solely on 16 to 19-year-olds.
“We were over 18 and I felt that was always very limiting,” Scollard explained.
Scollard said that he felt like while there are youth services available in Ireland, most of them are “information-based services” providing well-being information.
“That’s all very good and very powerful but beyond a certain type of helpline that exists, there’s not really any sort of people to connect with in a clinically sound and responsible way,” he said.
It’s really to give young people aged 16-19 access to the group type of environment on a daily basis, professionally facilitated with a highly trained counsellor, providing topics that young people would want to discuss.
“The problem with youth mental health in this country is that there’s no joined up plan that says look we have a bit of online, a bit of drop in centre, we have a day care and extended stay care facilities,” Scollard said.
“That’s not all joined up, so how are you going to guide people through the journey that they go through on the spectrum that they might go through? Not everybody is at that end of the spectrum where you’ll need extended stay care inside a rehabilitation centre.”
“It can be right back down to the very beginning of the spectrum where they might just need somewhere to start. It can be a really easy way to do it.”
So what does Turn2Me.org offer?
Both the adult and youth services operate on a “three-tiered” approach, according to Schollard.
Once someone creates an account on the website, they can access a number of different services.
There are self-help articles, podcasts and guidance posters available. Following this, there are peer support groups available. Users will get daily access to a professional in a secure group chat environment. Up to 12 people can join each group.
“They’re daily support groups that people can come into on their phones, they’re professionally facilitated and they’re on different topics like anxiety, depression, family and relationship difficulties, and workplace related stress,” Scollard said.
Finally, the website offers one-to-one support through individual counselling sessions.
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Turn2Me.org ran focus group with two different groups of 60 teenagers from all over Ireland with different socioeconomic backgrounds before launching the youth service.
This helped the Scollard brothers figure out what young people really wanted out of a mental health service.
“The subjects that we’ve chosen deliberately were very much based on what young people were saying they were wanting,” he said.
Anxiety is a very, very considerably large concern for young people and there’s issues around school, exams, where do I go now, sexuality as well. We have a dedicated LGBT group for young people.
Youth-friendly service
The new youth service is mobile-focused, in a bid to connect with the young users.
“We built mobile-first, it happens to work on a desktop, with the idea that we could offer some degree of connection to the place they know and spend a lot of time.”
Scollard told TheJournal.ie that although the new service will be dealing with minors, the service is completely safe and secure.
“In Ireland, 16 is the age at which a younger person can begin to start making their own decisions,” he said.
“I really wanted this to go 13+ but that’s just not going to be possible at the moment because of those parental consent issues. There’s a real need for 13+ but we’ve settled on 16+ for now because we’ve taken all the legal advice.”
For more information about the services, visit www.turn2meyouth.ie and www.turn2me.org.
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Turkey has been threatening this for a while… These people want to get to EU countries mostly France and Germany and former EU country the UK, but Europe is not assisting the Turks, it’s only a matter of time again…. and many of these could be ISIS fighters wanting to return home…. They need to be accessed with proper documentation and all finger printed, just like the EU does with African refugess/asylum seekers.
@Paul O’Sullivan: the EU needs to hold firm against this Turkish blackmail
@Paul O’Sullivan: and where is the database with all the fingerprints of the ISIS fighters?
@SFAnkleTapper: there is none…. Asylum seekers only have to give their fingerprints at the point of application for Asylum. Many of the ISiS fighters will be returning to their home countries UK /Belgium /France men of Arab origin who destroyed their documentation who will be moonlighting as Syrian refugees. Hence my point a record needs to be kept of these individuals.
If they are genuine they have nothing to hide. The fingerprinting is to keep a record of any future incidents.
@Paul O’Sullivan: so no prevention.
@SFAnkleTapper: I agree a disaster isn’t it.
Turkey is chomping at the bit for a land grab & war with Syria, The SAA are battle hardened and have the support of Russia, Erdogan will get his ass handed to him along with his aspirations for Turkish conquest.
Greece should take no more refugees with militants in the mix. The Greeks of Lesbos and Chios have made it clear they will take no more.
@Raven: That’s all well and good, but if the Turks are brought into a War it could lead to them at war with Iran, that will result in an attack on the toxic state of Israel. That will bring in the US and Nato…
Turkey has been asking for assistance with this a long time. The refugess dont want to be in Turkey they want to be in the EU. That’s the problem..
@Paul O’Sullivan: has its stands. Very large amounts of refugees /migrants from the middle east who are mostly Muslims have landed on Europe’s shores and have gain entry into Europe mainland . There is many issues with integration with the local populations,these people would be arriving from strict Islamic society’s.they would have sever problems with western cultures and liberal values. could these people not be relocated to mostly Moslem countries where their culture and religious values would be respected and inforced
@Paul O’Sullivan: Sure, They have been asking for help, but what is the reply from Saudi, The Emirates etc? This is causing social issues within Europe, but you won’t hear about parallel societies, non integration, crime stats via MSM.
@Raven: oh I agree with you Arab nations have never really looked after struggling Arabs..Saudi Arabia is one of the most despicable countries on the planet, if they had no oil they would have nothing…
@Bobby wilson: Agree with you totally, but Europe may need to provide something to keep them out….
@Bobby wilson: think it’s mainly you that doesn’t respect *muslim values. Why does a religion need to be *enforced on anyone? If you’re not Muslim then what does it matter to you?
Standard rhetoric from you eh lad.
@Paul O’Sullivan: You say the refugees want to be in the EU, but where they really want to be is at home in the communities they grew up in and live in. Tens of thousands of ordinary people are being murdered and used as pawns by the Turkish regime and others to further their objectives in the region.
@Paul O’Sullivan: “if the Turks are brought into a War”
Turkey is at war with Syria.
In the past 2 weeks the Turks have destroyed 5% of Syria’s armour, kiled 100s of Syrian government troops, and today they shot down two Syrian jets and destryed several air defence systems.
Here’s is video footage of Turkish troops firing an anti-aircraft missile from a rooftop, shooting down a Syrian government helicopter 2 weeks ago (could so easily have been Russian), with Al Qeada aillied fighters cheering in the foreground (loud warning):
https://twitter.com/Adnan_Alhusen/status/1227857701604069376
Turkey released 10 minutes of footage of them blowing up Syrian army tanks and troops with drones, recorded over the last 2 weeks in Idlib:
@Dermot Foley: so how do you preposed for myself and the Irish people on the island of IRELAND and main land Europe respect our new Muslims populations as refugees /migrants into their towns and cities. like in some parts of Britain where sharia laws are recognized by courts of lands like in their own home lands ..etc …as someone who live and work in a Islamic society over a period time it is completely different way of life if your not a Muslim and saying it very mildly
@Paul O’Sullivan: why does the Irish people and Europe have to offer them anything ! Why not the world how many refugees arrived in Japan which is one of the richest countries in the world….what’s happening in the middle east is very complex is centre around religion its bother fighting brother…
@David Jordan:
So Turkey being a member of NATO would mean NATO are at war with Syria.
@Dermot Foley:
Some rhetoric there at the Greek border, wouldn’t you agree.
https ://twitter.com/BasedPoland/status/1234038726952673281?s=20
@Raven: * So Turkey being a member of NATO would mean NATO are fighting with al Qaeda.
Here’s Turkish fighter jets sky writing over a Turkish base in Syria…
@Bobby wilson: you want sharia law recognised like parts of the UK!?!?
YOU go and live there and take anyone else who wants to be in that toxic cult with you please
@Simon McGunner: definitely not! But their are people out their from liberal west who are proposing that we must look into ways to accommodate Muslim refugees /migrants into the host cummunites. in ways that make their religious practices are valued and respected in equal to western values.
@David Jordan:
I have a link here to a video from yesterday where Turkish military personnel are beating and torturing captured Syrian military personnel, cannot is as it will be deleted by the mods. Not s love heart in sight. Turkey have no business having bases in Syria.
They need to get out, maybe the Russian Navy vessels en route will help them along.
@Bobby wilson: We saw your comments on the balgaddy lucan mosque. your obviously some Islamic crusader. That cult is responsible for FGM and a lot of other sick activities. Look at Rotherham in the UK all those children molested and not protected by the law. We just got he Catholic church under control we don’t need this cult in the West.
@Simon McGunner: I am trying to point out what happens when you have large scale Islamic immigration on to island of Ireland and main land Europe too and the world for that matter, to the local non Islamic populations and how relationships break down between the cultures .because of the strict religious Islamic believes come up against thec non Islamic believes ..that I believe Islamic populations should be relocate themselves to majority countries where their believes and culture is respected and enforced by the state.
If people have made it to Turkey they were refugees and are now in a safe country. If they are now looking to come to an EU country then they are migrants.
@SFAnkleTapper:
*Economic migrants, and if they are storming the Greek border, which thousands have, then they’re called illegal immigrants.
@Raven: correct.
@SFAnkleTapper: Looks like the Greeks have had enough, Greek military personnel and hardware are en route to the borders/. transit points with Turkey, Lesbos locals have burned down the UN migrant centers so no more can be received and today with Erdogans announced threat that he’d release refugees to Greece, Soros NGOs of German origin showed up on Lesbos only to be ran off and told to leave by the local Greeks. More blood and misery that originated with Merkel.
The problem is the war.
The solution is not to just put these people into Europe.They are not entitled automatic entry to Europe, like anyone else.The Greeks need help from EU to keep their borders and people and way of life as they see fit.
What is the response of oil rich middle Eastern countries to this crisis? There are camps suitable for housing millions in Saudi Arabia for example.
Can EU not help build camps in Turkey and when the war is over most people would go home no ?
Yes Turkey may need some help with this refugee side of the war they are in , like the €6 billion from the EU which is probably now spent.
They are seeking aid and at war.
They do deal very generously with millions of refugees from Syria and do need help.
have your say