Jigsaw wins Mental Health Initiative of the Year at the 2025 Irish Healthcare Awards

Jigsaw, the National Centre for Youth Mental Health, has been recognised with the Mental Health Initiative of the Year award at the 2025 Irish Healthcare Awards.

This comes in recognition of a significant and ambitious change management project designed to make mental health support more timely, accessible, and effective for young people.

Over the last year, we have rolled out a series of innovations across its national network, including online referrals, single session first therapy, and significant digital investments, all aimed at improving access and reducing waiting times for young people in need.

Since the introduction of these initiatives, Jigsaw has seen major results:

• 68% of young people now receive an appointment within a month (up from 19% in 2023).
• Self-referrals have increased sharply, offering young people the ability to refer at any time.
• Wait times and administrative pressures have been significantly reduced.

Dr. Joseph Duffy, Jigsaw CEO said:

“We’re really proud to be acknowledged with this Irish Healthcare Award, especially in the company of so many outstanding healthcare initiatives.

This recognition reflects the commitment and creativity of our teams nationwide who have embraced change and innovation to better serve young people.

Every improvement made over the last 18 months has been driven by one goal — to make it easier and faster for young people to get the mental health support they need.”

This award comes at a time of unprecedented demand for Jigsaw across the country  – September 2025 represented the highest level of demand for Jigsaw services in a single month since the charity was established in 2006. In September, 1,226 young people sought support from Jigsaw, compared to the same month last year it represents a 40.9% increase. Indeed, across the first nine months of 2025 (January to September), 7,816 young people have turned to Jigsaw for help, marking a 22.6% rise on the same period in 2024.

Dr. Duffy commented – “Alongside the efforts of our teams, we are hugely grateful to all those who supported our ambition through funding and investment, including the HSE (Mental Health), the Community Foundation of Ireland, the Ireland Funds, the Smurfit Westrock Foundation, the Fidelity Foundation and many others. We strongly believe Ireland has the capability to deliver mental health care rapidly and early, where the public, private and not-for-profit national and community organisations collaborate as part of an integrated system. This strengthening of collaboration is key to bridging the gap between supply and demand.”

Ends.