College of Psychiatrists of Ireland

Thank you to everyone who attended the Traveller mental health event in Tralee on Oct 15th, run annually with ourselves & Kerry Traveller Health & Community Development Project.
We launched a position paper which provides recommendations for how we might bridge the gap between the Traveller community and the mental health services they badly need access to. Available now on our website.

This week is Mental Health Awareness Week. We want to acknowledge the incredible work that is done by those in mental healthcare in Ireland. These are rewarding and challenging roles and burnout can often be a problem for staff.

Some changes that would help these workers are promoting manageable workloads, providing access to wellness resources and encouraging peer support and mentorship. To properly implement these, more funding needs to be allocated to mental health services in Ireland.

We protect patients by ensuring that the mental health team that cares for them are being looked after too.

Today is World Maternal Mental Health Day. We are encouraging mental health professionals, friends and relatives of new mothers to ask her how she is really feeling and encourage her to seek help if she is experiencing mental health challenges.

There’s a lovely atmosphere at our Spring Conference, with a fascinating programme ranging from the social to the purely biological, brought to us by outstanding speakers from at home and abroad!

Today we are launching a report recommending improvements to the governance and management structures of CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services in Ireland).

CAMHS in Ireland has been beset by chronic underfunding and under-resourcing. There have been failures to provide fit-for-purpose governance systems to facilitate CAMHS development in line with the government’s mental health policies.

Our proposed recommendations outline radical new governance and management structures, and they will lay solid foundations for the development of a world-class mental health service of which we can all be proud.

Specialist consultants should lead each CAMHS team, and a new role of Clinical Services Manager should be created at team and regional level.

See our website for more information.