Dr. Emma Regan:

One of the things that has been particularly helpful is exactly the television channel. The Deputy mentioned the issue about finding it difficult to engage people. It is really difficult to engage people at times, as people do not want to be seen to be engaging with mental health services. This week, on the prison television channel, from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., The Two Norries helped us to develop bespoke content in relation to adverse childhood experiences, trauma, mental health and coping. This was for 12 hours per day from Monday to Friday. They reviewed everything beforehand to see whether the content was triggering or inappropriate, or whether it was something that was really accessible for people. We are really happy with their involvement in things like that.

They are also reviewing all of our paperwork to see that it is accessible to people who may have literacy difficulties and dyslexia, and they are also co-facilitating one of our group programmes for people who are undermotivated around the possibility of change. We have a programme called pathways to change, and we have piloted it with Timmy Long, and a psychologist running it in Cork. Timmy is now going to come up to the Midlands Prison and co-facilitate it with a psychologist there, and James Long with a psychologist in Portlaoise Prison. If this pilot year is really successful, we would like to bring more people in to work as our colleagues. The legitimacy that they bring to group programmes, and the knowledge that we can bring together, is a perfect mix in terms of engaging with people who are on the tightrope, and who are not sure whether they want to change or not.