About Us

Niamh, the Northern Ireland Association for Mental Health, is the longest established mental health organisation in Northern Ireland. Niamh is a group consisting of three elements, Compass, Beacon and Carecall.

Our Structure

Recent History

Niamh was established by Lady Margaret Wakehurst in 1959. Through her experience with her son’s mental illness, Lady Wakehurst had direct exposure to the lack of support for people outside formal psychiatric institutions. In response to this Niamh set up the first Beacon House Club on University Street in 1959, the chosen symbol was a beacon - ‘shedding its light on the darkness of the mind’.

Over the coming years, in response to emerging needs, Niamh developed other Beacon Support services in towns throughout Northern Ireland so that, on its 50th anniversary Niamh had fourteen Beacon Day Support Centres with over 1,000 members attending regularly. Supporting people who have had experience of mental illness through the provision of community based day support has been at the core of Niamh’s services since its inception. However, over the years Niamh has continued to develop innovative additional services in response to the emerging needs of service users. Through listening attentively to what Beacon Members need, Niamh has been able to develop three Beacon Support schemes with over 100 tenants, two Home Support schemes supporting over 80 people per year, eight 24-hour Beacon Supported Housing schemes and twenty-six non 24-hour Beacon Supported Housing schemes with places for over 200 tenants. Alongside these schemes Niamh has also developed four Beacon Advocacy schemes providing support to 1,250 people each year.

While continuing to develop services to support those with experience of mental illness, more recent research was beginning to show very clearly that mental health is not achieved simply by treating mental illness, but also by promoting positive mental wellbeing. In response to this Niamh has broadened its services to include support for the whole population through mental health promotion and research. Carecall, with its focus on mental health support through counselling in the workplace was set up in 2000 and now has a potential user base of 205,000 people of which 110,000 are working adults and 95,000 are students (these numbers do not include the family members that are included in many of the contracts). Northern Ireland has a working population of 786,000 so Carecall currently covers 14% of the NI working population. In this year Carecall will deliver over 18,000 support sessions to over 5,000 people.

Due to its role as an innovator, in 2008 Niamh launched Compass, its centre for research and policy development. Compass has already contributed significantly to mental health and wellbeing research in Northern Ireland, undertaking studies on:
- Faith based organisations and the pastoral response to suicide.
- The mental health and wellbeing of teachers.
- A needs assessment of young men vulnerable to mental health problems and suicide.
- A review of the mental health promotion and suicide prevention strategies in Northern Ireland.
- A comprehensive needs assessment of mental health service users.

In addition, Compass is involved with various major studies funded by the NIHR in the UK including:
- A national evaluation of rehabilitation services.
- Decision making for carers of people with dementia.
- Developing and intervention to deal with the social and psychological impact of violence on older people.
Compass has also collaborated on a major proposal for the funding of an all-Ireland institute for hospice and palliative care