Wednesday 11 March 2009

9am to 1.15pm

Lagan Valley Island, Lisburn

The Design for Living Partnership (DFL) would like to invite you to a seminar on the work of the DFL Partnership over the past 10 years. It will be an opportunity to discuss issues affecting the mental health and emotional well-being of children and young people and new research on the emotional health needs of primary school children in Northern Ireland.

The DFL partnership between the Health Promotion Agency for Northern Ireland (HPA), Action Mental Health and the Youth Council for Northern Ireland (YCNI), was established in 1999 to respond to the growing concerns about the mental health needs of young people in Northern Ireland. 

In 2000 this partnership commissioned research to establish the mental health needs of young people aged 16-25 and in response to the findings published two resources entitled Sound Mind which aim to support the mental health and emotional wellbeing of young people aged 13-18 in the post primary school setting.  These resources – one for teachers and the other for young people have been distributed to all post primary schools since 2000, copies of both resources are available to download from the HPA website www.healthpromotionagency.org.uk

Since 2001 the DFL Partnership has organised a series of annual seminars aimed at individuals who work with young people across a range of settings.  The main aim of the seminars is to build capacity and provide support to those working with young people on issues of mental health and emotional wellbeing. In March 2008 three briefing papers based on the key themes of the seminars were published by the DFL Partnership and are available to download from the HPA website www.healthpromotionagency.org.uk

As 2009 is the tenth anniversary of the DFL Partnership, this event has been organised to celebrate its contribution to supporting the mental health and emotional wellbeing of children and young people.