What an unusual year it has been to say the least. In March, life as we knew it for many of us was put on hold so to speak, access to supports and networks that we usually rely on were, for now, put out of reach. Covid19 really challenged Suicide or Survive when it came to the delivery of our educational wellness programmes. Under normal circumstances we would be busy each week travelling the country offering a variety of workshops to communities, organisations, and businesses, unfortunately this has been temporarily paused.
We as a team committed to doing all we could and can to offer much needed support to people all around the country and have been able to respond to change by creating our online Personal Growth and Development sessions or as many of you might know them, the Wellness Webinars. These sessions along with our WRAP, Eden and Supporter programmes all moved to an online platform to stay safe and protect each other in line with Government guidelines, during this worldwide pandemic.
We are thrilled to say that SOS have delivered a wide range of programmes this year and with the power of technology have reached people from not only Ireland but the UK, Spain and even Dubai!! We have been fortunate to deliver our message of hope, resilience, mental wellness and breaking the stigma of suicide to so many of you.
The Eden Programme, our flagship programme, is delivered in four locations, Dublin, Roscommon, Mayo, and Galway. All four programmes began at the start of 2020 and were delivered in person up until mid-March where they moved to an online platform. We are happy to say that all four programmes were completed.
Our Wellness Workshops managed to reach people through online platforms and we also delivered some in person events before the pandemic. We delivered nine in person wellness workshops, reaching 332 people, 6 on an online platform, reaching 271 people and we brought 74 online webinars, which saw a massive 2,250 people attend with 681 people watching the recordings afterwards.
Our online Wellness Workshop had 1806 users throughout the year so far & 843 younger people engaged with our Youth online Wellness Workshop.
The WRAP – Wellness Recovery Action Plan, was delivered on three occasions to an in-person audience, again, this was moved to an online platform and SOS in partnership with the Copeland Centre have delivered a further 15 WRAP programmes to people all over the country.
Finally, our Supporters programme, this programme was re-evaluated and we took the time to adjust its requirements to an online platform, we were able to deliver this programme to groups twice this year and look forward to continuing this work into 2021.
Thanks to delivering our programmes online this year, attendees were no longer restricted by their location or mode of transport,
So to sum up the programme delivery in 2020, it is safe to say that in the midst of all the uncertainty and challenges to our comfort zones which COVID-19 has brought into our lives, we found a great silver lining in that we discovered new ways to connect with so many people and our reach has thankfully been far and wide, touching the hearts and minds of our communities.
SOS would like to say a big thank you to all our amazing participants for making our programmes so enjoyable, this hasn’t been an easy year but we hope we have been a source of comfort, information, tips, tools and techniques for looking after your own wellness and your head and your heart.
To learn more about SOS and our mental health programmes and workshops, please visit www.suicideorsurvive.ie