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MENTAL HEALTH CHARITY Aware has announced it’s looking for 40 volunteers to operate its Support Line after a 20% increase in calls in the past year.
Aware, which provides support for people who experience depression or bipolar disorder, gets between 1,000 to 1,200 calls a month to its Support Line, which is open every day of the week between 10am and 10pm.
Aware director of services Bríd O’Meara said that the people who ring in are “concerned about their mood, or might be experiencing depression but aren’t sure, or they’re looking for information”.
Each volunteer at Aware gives a minimum of three hours a week for a minimum of 18 months, but O’Meara says because of family commitments, they need staff to cover for others as well.
She told TheJournal.ie that the increase indicates more people are comfortable talking about their mental health problems than they were before.
More recently, they’ve seen an increase in the number of men using the Support Line.
“In the past seven months, we’ve seen the calls breakdown change from 60% women, 40% men to 50.4% men in June and 49.7% men in July.”
Before someone can volunteer, they must apply online, are interviewed and garda vetted, and receive training from Aware.
“Our volunteers aren’t counsellors,” O’Meara says. “We explore helpful options, we listen.
When people ring in we’re not trying to fix them. We provide a safe place for people to share their concerns and explore their options.
David McManus has been volunteering at Aware’s Support Line for over a year and a half. During his 20s he struggled with being comfortable in himself, and found that counselling services gave him the help he needed to “get out of your own head”.
He says that people call up for a variety of reasons, be it economic worries, loneliness or family troubles: “There can sometimes be difficult calls, yes.”
“For me I think the fact that somebody is there at the other end of the phone when someone makes a very brave decision to actually pick up the phone and try and share some of what they’re going through, I think that act of being there and just listening is a very powerful thing.”
Active listening… is probably one of the most valuable skills you can learn in life.
Bríd says that they’re looking for volunteers from the greater Dublin area, as their Support Line is manned from their Dublin city HQ. But if people from other areas in the country want to volunteer, there are other areas where they can dedicate their time.
“Without our dedicated volunteers we couldn’t provide this service to people. Our volunteers are absolutely vital for the service.”
If you’d like to volunteer for Aware, you can apply here.
If you need to talk, contact:
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Some neck on these two.
@The Viking: I guess if you were in their situation and facing years in prison we all chance your arm at anything.
The arrogance of these people is hard for me to take. It’s obvious there guilty
@Paul O Riordan: They didn’t offer any real defence in court as they knew it would be ripped apart by the prosecution.
I have to say I was shocked to see the jury members say what they were saying on the TV. I thought there would be some sort of instruction not to speak to the media about their jury duty.
@Paul Mc Nulty: it’s certainly not the way things are done here. But apparently the judge would have needed to issue the jurors with a gag order, which he didn’t.
@Donnachaín Ní Uallacháin: or issue the media with an order not to harass jurors in any trial. The media is at fault here not the jury. Media are supposed to be professional the jurors are lay people not used to dealing with the law or madia outlets.
I just hope the conviction is upheld but if a new trial is called i hope they are convicted of murder 1
I had several issues with the claims of the two. The number of blows, time elapsed before calling for aid, and her rubbing at her neck during police custody. Additionally, if my father were in the position of hers, he would come to my defence with fists, not a bat. He would be up and running, not stopping for a weapon.
@Rathminder: also telling is the fact that he told police that he woke to hear them arguing and stomping around upstairs and he went up with the intention of telling them to ‘knock it off’. Why would he bring a baseball bat to do that? And he was still wearing his watch which is unusual as most people would take their watch off before going to bed. Unless he stopped to put it back on again before going for the baseball bat.
As he is a former member of the FBI, i would have thought he would have been able to commit, cover up and justify the murder in a more professional manner
@Anne Marie Devlin: He may not have been very good at his job. The police said the crime scene was altered.
It was obvious that Molly Martens was told to wear loose-fitting dresses, flat shoes and a ponytail to portray the small, innocent schoolgirl look. They tried to portray Jason Corbett as a big, violent Irish lout. They banked too heavily on the typical Irish stereotype. I think it would have been prudent for the judge to issue a gag order in this case because this pair will stop at nothing. They just can’t accept the fact that they are not above the law.
So two murderers are putting their faith in a technicality to get off.
@Niallers: Unfortunately it is often more thsn enough to get away with murder.
US attorneys go out of their way to tell their clients how to look and act, and pick jurors based on their estimates of their prejudices based on age, gender and background.
When their sociopath clients show no remorse in the courtroom they then complain that the same jurors judged their clients based on prejudice against sociopaths.
As much as I like hearing jurors talk about their cases after the fact, they should have some advice from judges about how to phrase any statements so as not to leave open doors to appeal from public statements.
I don’t think the jurors were swayed by outside influences.
More like the the fact that they were bloody guilty!
have your say