Supporting Community Connections and Combatting Isolation

Psycab, the social inclusion and community activation program, supports local and community development in Ireland. It aims to reduce poverty and to promote social inclusion and equality. Psycab aims to empower communities to support well-being, to promote lifelong learning and it helps people to become more job ready. Psycab services are free, voluntary and confidential. Psycab program helps people to connect with their community and it nurtures mental well-being in Kilkenny Leader Partnership supports a project to improve people's well-being. It connects with people experiencing homelessness and people recovering from mental health and or addiction challenges. I suffer from depression. I isolate a lot of times away from things. It gets me out, you know, seeing different people. You're having a cup of tea and you can talk about anything and count yourself in the squad, try things, try new things. Anything that puts a It's great, I think it's great. It's getting me out, meeting people, just changing my life, what I can do and all that kind of thing so I'm happy. You know, just kind of forget about the everyday life for an hour or two a week. It keeps you going, it keeps from isolation and depression. It's very important to me to do art because it's a very big part in my life. One of the components of community development is empowerment, so it's really like to see themselves the way we see them, I suppose. Maybe that's a little bit ideal of us, idealistic, but yeah. PSYCAP supports in County Kildare show the value of social farming to improve people's health, well-being and inclusion. Farming is farming, social farming. We're doing something that's just a little bit special and people get something from it. People change and the participants here are no different than anybody else. After a while we're all friends. Over a year, we get to share their vulnerabilities, their stories, their whatever with you and that's lovely. Being in animals' lands and being in the old square too. I actually feel quite confident. I'm happy that I made it here. I didn't expect this at all. Westmead Community Development supports older people who were living in isolation to connect with others in the community. Over the last number of years, we have developed a range of different supports for older people to work towards our primary objective to assisting older people to live independent, active lives in their own homes for as long as possible. I'm on my own. You know, there's someone coming here once a week at least and I was a very active person. It's very interesting, very, very well organised. It's good for us, you know, when we don't have anybody and they're there for us. We know there's help there. The home visit will involve a weekly visit to a person and they really look forward to it. And without the support of SCICAP and the Healthy Westmead funding, those supports would not be possible to continue and SCICAP has enabled us to develop those range of supports to support that and it's something we would see growing in the coming years.