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Researchers from the Mental Health Team, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Trinity College Dublin (Professor Agnes Higgins (PI), Dr. Mark Monahan, Ms. Jennifer Barry & Ms. Christine Monahan) as part of the EOLAS Programme launched the ‘The Road we travel…’ exhibition on the 10th December 2019. The exhibition features the work of service users and family members who facilitate and participate in the delivery of the EOLAS Programme. The exhibition seeks to raise awareness about the impact of serious mental health problems and the contributions of the EOLAS programme. Through the medium of photography and in their own words, the contributors share their stories of living with a severe mental health problem, the journeys they have taken towards recovery and how the EOLAS process has helped them on that journey. The exhibition is an artistic venture developed as part of a collaboration with PhotoVoice and is funded by the Health Research Board (HRB) through a Knowledge Exchange Dissemination Award, and with support from the Health Service Executive (HSE). Nine contributors (service users, family members and researchers) were trained in the PhotoVoice method. Through photography, they have documented what EOLAS has meant to them and their families, and their experiences of involvement with and facilitation of EOLAS.

In creating the exhibition, the contributors reflected on the pictures they took and prepared explanatory captions. They came together as a group to design and develop the narrative of the photographic exhibition, in a process facilitated by the exhibition’s curator. The photographs you see here this exhibition are the culmination of their work together.  The exhibition is organised around 5 themes that illustrate the ‘road’ travelled by those who experience serious mental health problems and their families, and their journey on the road to recovery.  In 2020, The EOLAS Photographic Exhibition, will be hosted in different venues around the country. A full catalogue of the pictures captured as a part of the project can be seen at: https://photovoice.org/eolas/

Pictured at the launch of the EOLAS Participatory Photography Project (L to Right), Anne Coady (Health Research Board), Jim Ryan (HSE Assistant National Director for Mental Health Operations), Sharon Fergusson (EOLAS Facilitator and Project participant) Prof. Agnes Higgins (PI for the EOLAS Project), Damien Eagers (Photographer) and Rosemary Murphy (A/Director of Nursing and EOLAS co-ordinator, HSE Louth/Meath)

Quotes from the launch