Our Story
Mid West ARIES is the recovery education service for the Mid West region, covering Limerick, Clare and North Tipperary. We are a fully hybrid service, providing an inspirational, inclusive and transformative educational programme on mental health recovery and wellbeing in the community, in both Acute Psychiatric Units (Ennis and Limerick) and across the region’s day services. We offer in-person, online and self-paced learning.
We are an award winning service, twice shortlisted for the HSE Excellence Awards (2020 & 2023) and winner of the HRB Digital Mental Health Conference 2023 Implementation Award.
How We Began
Mid West ARIES is a recovery education service developed initially by the Mid West ARI (Advancing Recovery in Ireland) group. In 2014 the group carried out research to look at offering courses on recovery in mental health in the region. They discovered that people wanted to see courses available to people who have experienced mental health difficulties, family members, staff and the general public.
Based on this research, Genio, a not-for-profit organisation, agreed to fund a Recovery Education Project for one year in the Mid West. Following on from the successful 12 month pilot in 2016 and 2017, funding was acquired through the Service Reform Fund to further develop the service.
Since February 2018, ARIES’s expansion in the Mid West has continued to where we are today, a fully hybrid education service providing a range of accessible educational pathways for anyone over 18 with an interest in mental health and wellbeing.
What Do We Do?
What Do We Do? Mid West ARIES has a range of courses, information and educational materials on Recovery and Well-being in Mental Health. We are an inclusive adult recovery education service. Recovery education takes a strength and adult education-based approach which offers the choice to engage in learning opportunities. It is underpinned by the values of self-direction, personal experience, ownership, diversity, and hopefulness.
What Makes Us Different?
The topics of our workshops and resources are created by people with lived experience, family members and staff working within the services. This is called co-production. This means that everyone has a say in what goes into the workshops and resources. The workshops are then co-delivered by people with lived experience, family members and staff working within the services. This is different from how other courses are usually created and delivered.
Who Can Take Part?
Our workshops are open to anyone over the age of 18 years with an interest in mental health and wellbeing.
Where We Work
From face-to-face workshops both in the community, in the Acute Psychiatric Units and Day Services, to online community workshops, to self-paced courses, webinars, podcasts and through our social media outlets we continued to use our in-house development expertise, fuelled by our team’s passion to deliver our message “that recovery from mental health challenges is possible”. We continue to build relationships with our community and HSE partners.
in-person delivery in the community
We deliver a range of wellbeing workshops across the Mid West region.
online delivery to our communities
Each month we deliver a range of wellbeing workshops online via Zoom.
in-person in Acute psychiatric units
Twice each week we deliver in-person workshops in both Ennis and UHL.
in person across HSE mid west DAY SERVICES
We are delighted to co-facilitate workshops across Mid West HSE Day Services.
providing “COFFEE & CONNECTION” at our VIRTUAL CAFE
We host regular “Coffee & Connection” for learners across acute and day services.
delivering key training to hse staff & volunteers
We offer Recovery Principles & Practice, Co-Production & Facilitation Skills Training to staff across the Mid West.
delivering key training to our community partners
We extend our HSE training offerings to all of our community partners.
providing staff training -introduction to wrap
We have trained staff in both Acute and Day Services settings to deliver a 6 module Introduction to Wrap Programme.
co-production of all resources with our stakeholders
Working with people with lived experience of mental health challenges, their families, carers & supporters to build recovery-focused learning initiatives.
delvering innovation in learning & mental health recovery
We are committed to providing quality assured, engaging learning experiences across all workstreams.
working with our hse partners on key recovery education projects
We believe in cross-service collaborations and as a result have developed important new initiatives with the Specialist Perinatal Mental Health Team and Mid West Occupational Therapy.
Our Impact
2018 to June 2024
1,667
No. of Events
25,591
No. of Engagements
6
Years
What People Say About Our Workshops
