Skerries Youth Support Service, SYSS, is a youth-focused community organisation that offers information and support to local young people and their families when they are faced with challenges in their lives.

SYSS operates as a beacon for young people and their families in Skerries and the surrounding areas. They do this by promoting information and services on positive wellbeing, including mental health, physical health and personal safety. In addition to informing, they also raise awareness of issues and work to motivate and inspire those in need to seek help.

The group’s founding members recognised the need to support the town’s youths through difficult times, and in 2014 they came together to set up the group modelled on the highly successful volunteer group in Kinsale (KYSS).

Central to its purpose is to raise public awareness about mental health and to encourage conversations amongst all generations of the community in an open, honest and trusting way. Through these conversations the remaining stigma associated with mental health will be addressed, finding its way towards a position of acceptance.

Since it’s official launch in 2016, a group of concerned local people - fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, friends and teachers of those who have struggled in life - have become a part of an SYSS committee, giving their time and efforts to steer the organisation’s work.

SYSS works in partnership with several local organisations including the North Dublin Regional Drugs and Alcohol Task Force on the Substance Abuse and Mental Health, Skerries (SAMH) project. Their work is carried out by volunteers and is wholly financially supported through fundraising activities, events and donations.