Friday/Saturday in Galway

The past two days have been so much fun, I have barely had time to be in my room! On Friday morning we took a bus to a place called Merlin Park. It is an area of Galway were they have some mental health centers, rehabilitation centers, and a children/adolescent acute mental health center. We visited the children/adolescent center. It was probably the agency with the most differences than comparable agencies in America. For starters, the center was beautiful and completely new (it opened January 14th). Kids will go there if they are unfit to stay at home any longer. They have 14 beds for adolescents (14-18) and 6 beds for children up to age 13. All the children have their own rooms, group activities (including yoga, cooking classes, arts/crafts, community meetings), a very nice eating area, playgrounds, and a garden. All of the technology is completely up to date AND it is free because it is covered by public health care. Another interesting part of the unit is the fact that they have what they call a "parent's flat". It is a small apartment that families can stay in during the weekends so their children do not have to separated from their parents all of the time. They said they have only had one case in 30 years in which parents were not involved in the child's life and in that case they had very good foster parents. In the US it is very common for parents to be completely absent from a child's life once they enter a mental health center. Another difference is that in the US these centers are usually kept very dark, cold, and staff members have complete control. Something that really surprised me was that they had no children in this center currently and they suspected the most they will ever have in there at a given time is 2 or 3. In Kansas alone, a child can be on a waiting list for months and months because we have sooo many children being sent there. The social workers in Ireland could not believe that. Something else interesting is that at this center psychiatrists act as therapists and counselors. They do not give out medication to anyone younger than 12 unless it is completely necessary and when they do give out medication to anyone is a last resort. In America, as we all know, medicine is given out like candy to people of all ages hoping that it will cure everything. Not to rag on America or medicine BUT I think it is something we need to work on. Handing out medicine does not solve any long term problems, it just cures the symptoms of a problem. The last difference that surprised me was that adolescents can spend up to 6 months at these centers because they are free and they are getting actual help. American centers try to get kids out within 48 hours, which gets them back home (that can be good) but it makes me wonder if people are really even solving the crisis at hand. Overall, it was a great learning experience and it was a great center.

Friday night, we went to a church from the 14th century and listened to traditional Irish music. There were probably 30 people total in the audience and 3 different performers. It was a very intimate setting and I have never heard such great acoustics anywhere. Both the church and music were amazing. I think that setting and music could get ANYONE to go to church every single day :) We ended up going back to a place called the Crane bar which we went to the night before and a couple nights before that. They have great music there and  some of the musicians from the church were going there. We took a cab home early though because today (Saturday) we went to the Aran Islands.

There are 3 islands that comprise the Aran Islands. We took a ferry to the largest one (Inismor Island). A bus driver took us through the village which has about 800 permanent residents. He said during the major tourism season though they usually have between 1000-1500 tourists a day! He also drove us to a fort that is about 2500 years old. It was used as a defense mechanism and later on it was used for rituals. It was about a 20 minute hike up to it but it was worth it. Once you get up top there are huge stone walls (there are smaller stone walls covering the island) and a cliff with a 300 ft. drop. I sat on the very edge, of course :) It was so pretty. After the fort we drove to a place they call the seven churches. It really is only 2 sets of ruins of old churches and 5 houses were priests and other major people in the island lived. We then went to a house that was used in filming the movie "Man of Aran" in 1930. Finally, we drove up the coastline and watched a colony of seals. On this island they make handmade wool sweaters, scarves, blankets, etc. They also have great homemade food. Finally, we took the ferry back and ordered pizza (very Irish of us, right?). In the morning we are leaving for Cork. We will have pretty busy days there and get to see more agencies and hear more lectures. I am excited, although, sad to leave Galway.