More seeking family breakdown help

PARENTS are increasingly seeking professional help to deal with family breakdown and problems arising from the recession.

The Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (ISPCC) has reported a rise in parents accessing its mentoring service, with 65 families requesting help in the first nine months of this year in comparison to 35 for the whole of 2008.

According to the charity, divorce, separation and parental employment trends are serving to create complex family dynamics.

As divorce rates continue to rise here director of services of the ISPCC Caroline O’Sullivan said families are increasingly breaking down due to finances.

Its mentoring programme gets referrals from the HSE, public health nurses, and GPs, but often, said Ms O’Sullivan, parents approach the charity directly.

“When there was money in the household it was easy to cover the problems up but now it adds to the strain and is impacting hugely on the family,” she said.

“Under the programme the parent is assigned a mentor who they meet with once a week. They talk about relationships with the child and give advice and guidance.”

Ms O’Sullivan said the programme was “hugely successful” and always got results.

Psychologist Dr Teresa Graham said she is seeing the fallout in her practice, with families where the separation or divorce has a negative impact on the children presenting more and more.

She and some counselling colleagues in the Waterford area have put together a parenting course for separated and divorced parents.

“This is in response to a need we have seen in our practices to reduce the fallout for children in such situations, and to help parents face what is frequently a very distressing situation,” she said.

Meanwhile Barnardos launched an online resource to help teens and parents to deal with such issues from depression, alcohol and drugs to domestic abuse, separation and death.

The booklets were produced by Barnardos and the Family Support Agency.

Barnardos chief Fergus Finlay said Teenline was unique as it combines guidance for teenagers with linked guidance for parents on the same themes.

* barnardos.ie/teenhelp