Facilitated by Informing Choices NI (ICNI), this project is exploring how loss and bereavement is discussed and dealt with for people with learning disabilities, autistic people, and their families. A researcher from Ulster University is working alongside ICNI through a process of co-production with the community. Through meetings, workshops, focus groups and peer support groups, people with learning disabilities, autistic people, their families and support staff will be given the space to discuss and explore how loss and bereavement has impacted on their lives and what support was available, with the aim to produce tools that will help others across Northern Ireland and beyond.

By applying a LIFEMAPS mental wellbeing framework, this project supports young people to embed daily habits that support positive mental wellbeing including altruistic behaviours.
Working with a researcher, the project trains a group of young peer researchers to gather feedback from other young people and showcase examples of developing positive mental wellbeing. The project is responding to issues that young people in their community may face including challenges around race, disability, and sexuality.

This project is recruiting and training volunteer dads to engage with other local fathers to identify issues and facilitate programmes to support each other’s mental wellbeing. The project is working with a researcher to train a group of dads to become peer researchers who will be able to gather information about the needs and interests of others in a similar position in order to inform the approach. By offering a supportive and collaborative environment, the project is improving the confidence and skills of dads in the local area and highlights the positive force they are in the lives of their children and wider community.

This multi-stage project is working with patients of a local GP practice to help them discover their own strength and capabilities, leading to an improved sense of self and mental wellbeing. Through peer-support groups, and input from their researcher, the patients are being supported to become ‘peer researchers’ to help explore barriers and enablers to wellbeing, helping co-design a programme for wider rollout.

The first project was successful in enabling a safe space for survivors of women and baby institutions to explore their mental wellbeing via creative outputs. The plan for the extended project involves developing these creative responses into a formal photographic exhibition and the production of a film to document their journeys. Their researcher will support in the promotion and dissemination of the creative outputs, with the aim of raising awareness of the issue and informing any future statutory inquiries.

Hive Cancer Support (formerly The Pink Ladies Breast Cancer Support Group) and their researcher will develop an interview schedule and interview cancer survivors about their experience of cancer surgery. They will then commission an artist to take the themes identified by the interviews and turn this into a city centre mural in Derry using non-toxic paint. They will form a steering group, including Pink Ladies members, to shape each step of the project.