St Ultan's is One Good Club!

St Ultans Ladies Football Club has been selected along with 26 other clubs nationwide to take part in a new mental health programme, 'One Good Club'.

This programme was set up by Lidl, Jigsaw, and the Ladies Gaelic Football Association (LGFA) to increase awareness and knowledge of mental health across the LGFA community.

This new initiative offers clubs the opportunity to support all its members and engage in activities that can promote their health and wellbeing. The LGFA stated that 40 per cent of adolescents aged 12-19 reported experiencing levels of depression outside the normal range, according to My World Survey 2, developed by UCD and Jigsaw.

Club chairperson, Cliona Rennicks, says: “Mental health awareness in young people is so important, particularly now with so much social isolation during this pandemic. It’s necessary for us to facilitate the youths needs as mentors but also as someone they can talk to if they were struggling with anything or just need a listening ear”.

Cliona also states that “this programme will help us become more approachable to all people in our club and raise much needed awareness of mental health not just in young people but the wider community as well especially in these unprecedented and testing times”.

The five-step Lidl One Good Club programme was developed using the ‘5 a Day for your Mental Health’, a framework made up of simple actions aimed at boosting your mental health and wellbeing.

The steps include:

1. Connect (communicate with others)

2. Be Active (the importance of movement and exercise for mental health)

3. Take Notice (awareness on what is going on within us and what is going on in nature around us can work wonders for our mental health)

4. Give (Helping others makes us feel needed and valued; Smile, give a compliment, do something nice for a friend or a neighbour; and

5. Keep Learning (Learning exposes us to new ideas and helps us to stay curious and engaged).

St Ultan's Ladies began a series of mental health and wellbeing activities for the club and wider community on 1st March, a challenge to undertake during Level 5 restrictions but the creativity and resourcefulness of the committee will overcome the obstacles. All details of our activities will be posted up on the club's Facebook and Instegram pages.