PPR

In a guest blog on our website, Shannon Doherty from @cajni.bsky.social & @nwmf.bsky.social looks into recent changes to PSNI policy around the removal of hate expression.

Read the full blog here 👉 www.nlb.ie/blog/278/hat...

Persistent ambiguity around how expressions of racism in graffiti and signage are responded to has led to an unwillingness to categorise materials as racist hate crime, a lack of clarity on responsibility, and an effective veto for paramilitary organisations for removal of hate graffiti or signage.

Our recommendations are:

💷 Full transparency of funding
🎯 Target resources based on objective need
📈 Implement measurable outcomes and accountability frameworks
⚖️ Develop a sustainable, cross-departmental funding model
⏰ Implement core actions immediately

Policy Brief | New Script response to Inquiry into Cross-Departmental Funding for Suicide Prevention Keeping an eye on policy changes in Ireland

Six years into the Department for Health’s Protect Life 2 Strategy, the rates of suicide in NI show no sign of decreasing.

Read the New Script campaign’s response to the All-Party Group on Suicide Prevention’s inquiry into funding 👉 www.nlb.ie/investigatio...

Download a pdf or epub copy of The Rest of the Story – Transforming Trauma to Voice, Agency, and Leadership here 👉 www.library.nlb.ie/book/166

To purchase a hard copy of the anthology, email sara@pprproject.org

To Go All In this World Book Day is to:
📖 Go all in on listening.
🗣️ Go all in on voice.
🤝 Go all in on community.
🔥 Go all in on reimagining mental health systems that honours human suffering, doesn’t pathologise it.

Find out more 👉 bit.ly/4crLRYh

In a world where people are too often reduced to labels, diagnoses, or “single stories,” this book insists on something radical: that we are the authors of our own lives.

Through trauma-informed, restorative storytelling, contributors transform silence into song, grief into solidarity.

Created as part of the work of New Script for Mental Health, this powerful collection shows what happens when people are given the space, safety, and support to tell their own stories — on their own terms.

✨ Storytelling becomes healing.
✨ Voice becomes agency.
✨ Agency becomes leadership.

This year’s World Book Day theme invites us to Go All In — and there is no better time to go all in on stories that heal, empower, and transform.

The Rest of the Story: Transforming Trauma to Voice, Agency, and Leadership (2025) is more than an anthology. It is a social movement in book form.

Your voice made a difference. Candour and accountability are firmly on the agenda — and we’ll be sharing more soon on our assessment of the Minister’s next steps.

When we act together, change happens. 💙

Read more 👉 bit.ly/4cnQanA

Get involved 👉 bit.ly/3NafNOo

Our tracking shows 124 responses came through our digital action — a massive 46% of the total submissions.

The Department’s published analysis puts it at 38% of all responses.

Either way, the message is clear: people want openness, transparency and accountability in our health services.

👏 Huge thanks to everyone who responded to our digital action on the Department of Health’s Consultation on a Statutory Duty of Candour!

Because of you, the call for both individual and organisational statutory duties of candour could not be ignored.

Government data blackout 'fundamental failure in accountability' Lack of reliable mental health data has sparked public calls for change.

“Strategy without measurable public reporting is simply rhetoric, and a fundamental failure in accountability.”

Thanks to the Impartial Reporter for covering this important story on failures to publish mental health data.

Read the full article here 👉 www.impartialreporter.com/news/2588094...

When we look after each other and the ground under our feet, amazing things happen. 🌱

We’re delighted to be working with Newhill Youth & Community Centre and the web of community growers and rewilders in Upper Springfield - so many ways our outdoor spaces support our communities to heal. ❤️

If you missed the event, you can read the full ebook below, or contact sara@pprproject.org to enquire about getting a physical copy 📖

www.library.nlb.ie/book/166

“Let the song of love run through your soul, let it make each cell anew.”

At the launch of the Rest of the Story anthology in @themacbelfast.bsky.social in October last year, New Script activist Sean Fitz read his poem ‘Take a Chance’, which opens this powerful collection of writing and art.

You can read the campaign’s full statement here 👉 www.nlb.ie/blog/274/ass...

“Without data, MLAs cannot scrutinise performance. Public spending cannot be assessed for value. Inequalities cannot be identified or addressed and strategy cannot be measured or improved.”

Thanks to Derry Now for covering our call for transparency in mental health data ahead of Monday’s debate.

Campaigners ‘re-wilding’ Belfast site where they fear 900 homes won’t be built due to interface concerns Locals taking steps to build a thriving and sustainable community space on vacant land as they call for social homes

“This is a housing crisis. In times of crisis, you need to act fast.”

Thanks to @irishnews.com for covering the hard work of the Take Back the City activists making the Mackie’s site a sustainable place for communities to thrive.

Read the full article here 👉 www.irishnews.com/news/norther...

It was a really positive and much-needed space. People came looking for housing advice, education support, and general guidance.

Interested in getting involved? Reach out to us here or email asma@pprproject.org

Last Friday, we held our first DAR drop-in session in collaboration with the Kind Economy and CATU Belfast.

DAR is a men’s support and community group created by Kind Economy and CATU to support migrant and refugee men in Belfast, particularly around housing, isolation, and access to services.

This afternoon, the Assembly will debate mental health data, activists from New Script welcome this debate and will be watching closely.

To find out more about the issues around secrecy in mental health data, you can read our previous blog on the subject here 👉 www.nlb.ie/blog/40/2023...

‘What I see in clinic is never a set of labels’: are we in danger of overdiagnosing mental illness? Our current approach to mental health labelling and diagnosis has brought benefits. But as a practising doctor, I am concerned that it may be doing more harm than good

‘Our minds are not brittle! or rigid, but dynamic and responsive… To reverse the mental-illness epidemic we need less rigid classification, and more curiosity and kindness, humility and hope.” - Dr. Gavin Francis

www.theguardian.com/news/2026/fe...

DeYoung is the author of ‘Power, Politics and Territory in the ‘New Northern Ireland’’, which looks at the wasted opportunity of the Girdwood site, you can also find a link to her book here 👉 www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/book/10....

“What the neighbourhoods around the Girdwood site really needed, then and now, was social housing.”

Read Elizabeth DeYoung’s response to the news of a £22 million investment in the Girdwood Community Hub can be found in @andytownnews.bsky.social here 👉 belfastmedia.com/mala-poist-g...

Candour & Communities This exhibition marks the passage through parliament of the Public Office (Accountability) Bill 2026 (commonly referred to as Hillsborough Law).

Don’t miss it when it comes to Belfast 👇

centreforpeoplesjustice.org/candour-comm...

Mon 30th – Tue 31st March, 9am-5pm
St Comgall’s, Falls Road, Belfast

Candour & Communities shines a light on some of the most devastating disasters and scandals over the past century – all of which are marked by a widespread culture of lies and concealment by public authorities across the UK.

Inspirational speeches also from Lee Castleton, former Post Office subpostmaster, and Helen Stalford from the University of Liverpool.

This new touring exhibition from @cfpjustice.bsky.social offers a powerful insight into a landmark new law designed to end cover-ups by those in public office.

“Unless the Hillsborough Law, or any other law or policy change is fit for purpose, in the eyes of families, in their experience, they won’t accept it.”

- Prof. Phil Scraton speaking powerfully at the Belfast launch of the ‘Candour & Communities’ exhibition.

Take Back the City | Build a better Belfast Take Back the City is a community coalition that advocates building homes on publicly owned land in Belfast as a way of tackling homelessness and the growing waiting lists for social homes in the city...

Find out about our plans for this site, and the wider Mackie’s site at takebackthecity.ie 🔗