A charitable organisation has been playing a vital role in offering free mental health services in Co Fermanagh for more than 30 years.
The Aisling Centre in Enniskillen offers free counselling and therapy services from professionals for those dealing with a variety of issues.
Bridie Sweeney, centre coordinator at the Aisling Centre, says the service it provides is vital to the local community and has been since it was first opened in 1990.
“The centre was set up over 30 years ago in 1990 and it literally was set up to respond to the needs of the local community in terms of emotional support," she said.
“It was quite progressive in its time because counselling and therapy wouldn’t necessarily have sat easily with people back then in a rural community.
“It has just gone from strength to strength. Our core work is in counselling and psychotherapy and we would receive on average about 80 referrals a month.
“We offer between 100 and 120 sessions of counselling a week.
“We literally work with pretty much everything you can imagine. We work with victims and survivors of the Troubles, we work with victims and survivors of sexual abuse and violence and domestic violence, bereavements, anxiety, depression.
“Anything that you can imagine that will create difficult times for people will come through our door.
“We have a team of 17 therapists working in the centre, they bring with them a whole range of experience and skills.”
Fundraising efforts from the local community are key to the centre being able to offer its services for free, and those funds often come full circle for individuals and families in Co Fermanagh.
Bridie added: “Counselling sessions are free, we get some funding and we get a lot of support from the local community.
“That enables us to be able to offer counselling services for free. It’s a professional service - everyone is qualified, but it is a free service and it’s confidential.
“We do give people the option of giving a donation and we do encourage giving a donation because it is good to invest a little bit in yourself.
“I would say that as a service it is absolutely vital, it’s a real lifeline for the local community.
“The amount of support we get from the local community is amazing, and it’s really humbling to be honest.
“You’ll have a group or an individual coming to say they have done a fundraiser, can we come along and donate the money, and then somebody will tell you quietly they chose this charity because they got counselling there or a family member got counselling there.
“There’s nearly always a personal connection back to the fundraising, whether that be via local businesses or individuals, church or school groups.
“That extra support we get enables us to do the level of work we do, we wouldn’t be able to do the work we do without that."
Bridie said that during the pandemic the issue of mental health became one that hit home for a lot of people in Fermanagh and elsewhere.
The organisation is also organising an upcoming mindfulness based stress reduction programme starting in October.
“We closed our doors physically when Covid came but our work certainly did not stop and our phone was buzzing the whole time with people looking for help.
“We found during the pandemic we actually did less sessions overall, but that was because people tended to need longer sessions.
“For many people, Covid was something else on top of other things that were already going on in their lives.
“Covid has helped to highlight the mental health needs of the community in general, not just in Fermanagh.
“I think there still exists some stigma, even though people are much better at talking about it now.”
