A SERIES of webinars is taking place for the farming community as part of the launch of a new community-style platform focusing on farming well-being.
The Farm Well Hub will focus on issues like stress, isolation, and physical health that often go under the radar in the agricultural community.
The new Farm Well Hub is a collaboration between Amella Coaching, Outsource Digital Marketing, and the Agricultural Consultants Association (ACA). Anne-Marie Doran of Amella Coaching and Consultancy has begun a series of webinars for farmers and their families and she told The Southern Star she hopes the new hub can serve farmers in West Cork and around Ireland for the long-term.
‘Typically, Ireland as a society is slow to talk about well-being,’ Anne-Marie told the Star. ‘It is becoming more popular to speak about in the past five years but the farming community is typically a little bit behind again. Farmers are quicker to look after the health of their animals than they are themselves.
‘There’s huge stresses and pressure on farmers. We hear about remote working and working from home in recent years but farmers have always done this.
‘In my business when I close my door, nobody is going to come calling at 5am. For farmers, there’s often no release valve, if a cow is calving in the middle of the night. Farmers never put in place a focus on taking breaks for themselves despite huge pressures. Look at the floods in West Cork and the effect this is having on farmers to. The Farm Well Hub is about championing farmer wellbeing.’
The Farm Well Hub will focus on mental health support with resources and guidance to help farmers manage stress and other challenges; physical health advice with tips on nutrition, hydration, sleep, and maintaining physical wellbeing; real farmer stories with testimonials from farmers sharing their personal journeys with wellbeing, and expert-led webinars addressing crucial topics in farmer wellbeing.
The first webinar, focusing on understanding and improving mental health took place last Wednesday but a recording is available online.
The next webinar takes place on Wednesday October 23rd at 8pm and will focus on overcoming isolation and loneliness, addressing the impact of social isolation on farmers’ mental health, offering practical strategies for social connections and support networks. Anne-Marie Doran will host the webinar and guests will include mental health nurse and counsellor Annette Parker and Sarah Fanning of the HSE Social Prescribing Initiative. The aim of this webinar is to see where enhanced social supports can be accessed, to reduce feelings of loneliness and improve community engagement.
Upcoming webinars will focus on healthy habits on mindset, nutrition, sleep and exercise, featuring Kilkenny All Star hurler Eoin Murphy; a webinar on hope and healing, focusing on suicide awareness and prevention, and a webinar addressing addiction in the farming community.
‘Our mission is to provide farmers with the resources, support and guidance they need, not just on the farm, but in their personal lives as well. We will be contacting all the Irish farming organisations in the coming days to share our initiative with their members in a collaborative approach to put mental health and wellbeing to the fore.’
The webinars will all be recorded so they can be watched afterwards if farmers are unable to watch on the night.
For more information or to register for the webinars, visit www.farmwellhub.ie
Farm Well Hub is designed to be a one-stop shop for farmers’ wellness, providing access to relevant and easy-to-apply advice. ‘There are loads of mental health resources in Ireland but many are gathering dust. They are hidden. We said let’s build a website with all the resources that farmers can access in one place.
‘If you have a broken leg, you fix it. It’s the same with mental health. We just want to start the conversation, give farmers a bit of knowledge. It’s not preachy. We want this to grow. Just because you are in rural Ireland doesn’t mean you can’t talk about your mental health.’
Visit www.farmwellhub.ie
