Mid Year Update

Summer is approaching and there is a sense of normality returning although Covid has most certainly not gone away.

Here at the SII Resource Centre we are fully open again and it is great to be meeting people again face to face. In fact, we had our first event at the NRH hospital earlier this week and this was the first time in 2 years that we met with newly injured patients face to face. As we have been for the last two years, we are always available online or through social media or you can check out our new website for updated information. I mentioned before that we have moved our peer support, health and wellbeing, and education programmes online and you can join them whenever you wish, all you need to do is register. You can find out more about our line programmes here…

One area where we have seen an increase is referrals for counselling for family members. Unfortunately, during Covid and for public health reasons, family members were not permitted to visit their loved ones in hospital. You can only imagine the trauma and upset that this caused families and here in SII we were able to offer the services of a trauma counsellor to help families deal with their changed circumstances. If you know someone who could avail of this service please contact [email protected]

We are also delighted to announce that we are re-starting our activities programme after two years, now branded ‘A Great Day Out’. We are currently training all our volunteers and getting a new hoist for the boat in Dun Laoghaire so we can bring out newly injured patients and their families and if people do not want to try out the boat, they are welcome to attend a match or concert or have a family day out at an amusement park. If you are interested in finding out more about this programme, please contact eoin@spinalinjuries.ie

After two years of cancellations, we are delighted to be hosting our first Algarve Cycle in association with the IRFU Charitable Trust. Good luck to all our cyclists flying out to Portugal this weekend and a big thank you to Paralympian Mark Rohan who has organised the cycle for us and to Vendici Properties for their kind sponsorship.

We are still recruiting for the Tall Ships Challenge which is taking place in June. You could have the opportunity to sail from Poole in the UK to Dublin. Like all our challenges this is fully accessible and is open to people of all abilities. You can find out more about it here.

Finally a huge thank you to everyone who attended our Spring lunch and to all of you who have supported SII during a difficult two year period. We could not do what we do without your support. It has been a challenging time for everyone and the fact that you made the effort to remember us means a huge amount to us.

I hope you and all your families are well and hopefully we will all progress out of this pandemic to better times. At any stage if I can do anything for you I would be happy to hear from you at [email protected]

Kind Regards

Fiona Bolger

CEO

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