Wellness Service

Family Wellness Service

The project aims to enhance the emotional health and wellbeing of children aged 5 - 12 who are at risk of developing significant mental health difficulties if early intervention measures are not identified and addressed, with a view to reducing their need for more intensive or long-term support from statutory/other services.

The project adopts a holistic person and family centred approach which helps families to better support their children, understand and manage their circumstances, to be part of the community they live in and to experience less stigma and discrimination.

What we do

We offer one-to-one support for children and their parents and/or carers using a WRAP approach.

In the short video above, Wellness Service client Lea explains the impact of WRAP on her mental health

Wellness: A sense of feeling good about yourself and not feeling sad or angry more than normal. People with a sense of wellness live and enjoy life.

Recovery: This is a journey. It can be anything but it generally involves feeling better about yourself, an illness or a problem.

Action: This is what you can do. The things that you put in place or change in your life to help the recovery journey.

Plan: The idea of a plan here is that you will have an idea of what it looks like when you are well and what it looks like when you aren’t well. You can write it down, type it out or be as creative as you want when creating your plan.

WRAP was developed by Mary Ellen Copeland and other people who had been feeling bad for years and developed a plan to feel better.

It can be used by anyone who wants to create positive change in the way they feel, increase their enjoyment of life or increase wellness. This system is something which is individual to each person; no one can create it for you. It will help you to keep track of some of the difficult feelings you can have and develop actions which can make you feel better. The plan is developed to try and help you stay as well as possible. Progress is measured by you not by someone else. Wrap will help you think through a process, recognising subtle signs of changes which may indicate things are worsening for you. It sets out actions that you create to make yourself feel better, get well and stay well

WRAP is not a replacement for traditional medical treatment and other therapies, it is complementary to them. It may not prevent or completely alleviate difficulties but it is hoped that with using it, we can reduce the difficult times and be able to deal with them without them escalating therefore preventing crisis.

WRAP can be used for any aspect of life. You should always develop a WRAP when you feel well. You can be as creative as you want with WRAP - it’s up to you how it’s done.

Areas we cover

Western Health and Social Care Trust (Fermanagh & Omagh) & Southern Health and Social Care Trust

Who we’re funded by

The Wellness Service is funded by Department of Health through Community Foundation.

How to access our service

Children can be referred through Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services or their GP by the Early Invention Family Support Hubs (FSH) in both the WHSCT & SHSCT. Parents are welcome to self-refer through their local Family Support Hubs, and professionals involved in the child’s life may also refer through the Hub.

Self-referrals are welcome by contacting Fermanagh Family Support Hub on 028 6632 4181 or Omagh Family Support Hub on 02882 259 495. Alternatively, your Mdwife or Health Visitor may refer you. For more info on Family Support Hubs, visit: http://www.familysupportni.org.uk/ or http://www.cypsp.org/family-support-hubs/

How to contact us

Email: ursula.meehan@mindwisenv.org

Mindwise, Fermanagh House, Broadmeadow Place, Enniskillen, BT74 7HR.

For more information 

Parenting NI’s website has more information on the Family Wellness Project, including: 

• Information on aspects of children’s mental and emotional health 
• A list of the courses available with the Family Wellness Project’s partner agencies 
• Lots of resources that you can use at home to help your child develop their emotional health and wellbeing 

You can download our leaflet for children to help explain how the Family Wellness Project can help.  We’ve also got a leaflet for parents and carers.