Yellow pages of family support services

Teach Oscail workers have laid bare the sometimes “soul destroying” challenges the Family Resource Centre faces ahead of its 25th year anniversary in the community.

They took the opportunity to flag some issues with Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald when she visited the centre last Friday afternoon, and later Castlemanor Nursing Home.

Located at 31 Church Street in Cavan Town, the team supports families and young people in the community. Their services include counselling, mediation, parenting programmes and social prescribing.

For Teach Oscail, this amounts to 20,000 visits annually, 400 people through its doors every week and 52 hours of counselling. Every visit represents a family affected by the circumstances. Staff numbers have grown from three initially to 37 currently.

The demand for their services has risen alongside the costs of rent and amenities. “We were at the brink of being homeless ourselves two years ago,” centre manager Tara Lynagh recalls.

They are “grappling” for funding from various agencies, Tara describes one of her permanent bureaucratic struggles. TUSLA and HSE provide the core funding. However, there has been a significant rise in addiction, domestic violence, homelessness and mental health cases over the past years, and the same budget is stretched across these cases.

The work itself has shifted from early intervention to managing the crises. Homelessness being a major issue in the county means there are no available emergency shelters.

“A woman and her children had to sleep on the floor due to a domestic violence situation,” reveals Tara; while another woman who relapsed was sent on a bus to Dublin because the waiting list for certain cases was nine months long.

“When people decide they want help, they want it now, not in nine months’ time”, explains another worker the urgency of the situation.

They are appreciative of the relief the Family Support Services have provided, because they are able to link them into a number of other support services like toddler groups, men’s groups, aftercare, youth resilience as well as narcotics anonymous groups.

“We’re a bit like the yellow pages of family support,” describes Social Prescriber Peter Sexton. As a link worker he connects individuals with community groups and services to improve their health, addressing issues stemming from loneliness and isolation.

“It’s mostly older people, who live alone, but we see more and more younger people in need.”

This applies especially to foster children who turn 18 and cannot avail of any services, thus are in danger of falling through the cracks.

“We try to be as creative as we can to help these teenagers, because there is not a radical difference between being 18 or 17”, says team member Martina Greenan during the visit from Mary Lou McDonald.

The leader of the opposition agreed: “There is a general problem with 18 being that cliff edge. All international evidence suggests to extend that into the mid 20s, because suddenly all of their access disappears.”

Ms Lynagh is thankful for Deputy McDonald listening to the staff from Teach Oscail, meaning their services and challenges are on the radar of politicians.

“Regardless of what political party, all of them [politicians] should be lobbying for the most vulnerable.”