Care Opinion Engagement Events- Oct 2025

I was lucky enough to be invited over to Sligo & Donegal at the end of October 2025 to support all the great work that is happening within Sligo/Leitrim Mental Health Services and Donegal Mental Health Services. Over two days we worked together to create engagement events for both staff who work in the mental health services and service user representatives. We also invited authors who have shared a story on the Care Opinion Ireland site to come along too.

Day 1: Celebration of Care Opinion - Sligo/Leitrim Mental Health services

Dr Donagh O'Neill, Consultant Psychiatrist/Executive Clinical Director opened the event with a thoughtful welcome. He set the tone by highlighting the vital role of patient and service user feedback in shaping services, particularly at the early stages of mental health recovery. Patients from the Early Intervention in Psychosis service have been sharing stories after receiving support and care, read the stories here.

Dr Liz Gethins, Consultant Psychiatrist followed by delivery a moving presentation on how beneficial the stories have been for the Crisis Resolution Service and how important personalised and empathetic staff responses are. Dr Gethins shared the famous quote by Maya Angelou, which she has even used in a response to a story on Care Opinion.

"People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people never forget how you made them feel"

The thing that Dr Gethins said she really likes about Care Opinion is that its unstructured and they are not asking people to fill in questionnaires that have preconceived ideas about what they should be 'measuring'. She really liked hearing from patients in their own words, what was good, bad or indifferent. Dr Gethins went on to say they had received one or two postings that challenged them to do better and in response they listened and worked on that.

Sometimes giving feedback allows the person to reflect on the journey they have taken and how far they have come. Sometimes it also allows people to say thank you, that’s important for them and for the team

Slides for download:    crisis-resolution-team-slides.pptx

We also heard from Sligo CAMHS  Clinical Coordinator Maire Kelly, who gave a fantastic presentation about their experience so far asking for stories about care from patients, relatives and carers.

A massive thank you to Martin Jones, Alcohol & Substance Misuse Service Manager and Joanne O'Halloran, Senior Clinical Psychologist for all the hard work organising the event and for giving a glimpse into how Care Opinion first started in Sligo/Leitrim Mental Health Services all those many years ago back in 2015. You are both huge advocates for Care Opinion and continue to champion the values and mission with local services.

The Power of Lived Experience

The highlight of the day came when a service user and Care Opinion author, known as “The herb”, bravely stood before the audience to read his story aloud. This was a profoundly powerful moment, made even more meaningful by the fact that Dr Liz Gethins had personally responded to his story on the Care Opinion site.

Reflecting on his experience, he shared:

“When I posted my story on Care Opinion, I couldn’t believe it when I received a response from the clinical psychiatrist. It felt like receiving a letter from the king.”

His words captured the essence of Care Opinion: the transformative impact of being heard, acknowledged, and valued.

Day 2: Donegal Mental Health Services - Widening out the reach of Care Opinion

We headed up to Donegal Town to meet with staff and discussed benefits of promoting Care Opinion to both service users and staff then in the afternoon we held an event for both Donegal Mental Health Services staff and invited service users to the Letterkenny ATU campus. A massive thank you to Paul Cartin, Principle Social Worker, Aisling Quah, Lead Occupational Therapist and Shauna Sweeney, Area Lead for  Mental Health Engagement & Recovery for all you hard work that went into organising the events and inviting all the right people in the room.

We had a presentation about Care Opinion and how it can be rolled out in services to raise the profile of the importance of online patient feedback (see slides below for download). With the contribution from a service user representative we had a valuable discussion about the importance of hearing the voice of patients and how they can also play a vital role in peer led conversations or in a volunteering capacity to help generate new stories from people accessing mental health services.

Ireland-training-presentation-event-oct25.pptx