More parents seeking help for family breakdown and financial problems

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

The ISPCC has reported a rise in parents accessing its mentoring service – up 147% from 2008, and according to the charity, divorce, separation and parental employment trends are serving to create complex family structures and family dynamics.

As divorce rates continue to rise here – there were 6,222 separations and divorces in 2008, an increase of 15.6% from 2001 – 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 very negative impact on the children presenting more and more.

With counselling colleagues in the Waterford area, she has 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.

Dr Graham – who also heads up a campaign against hospital acquired infections – said consequences for the child may be depression, lack of self-esteem, lower academic performance, behavioural problems leading to delinquency or substance abuse and difficulty in sustaining relationships when they reach adulthood.

Another big issue said Dr Graham when separation or divorce occurs, is the family home, and providing another home for the parent who has left.

“If there is sufficient money, these problems can easily be solved, but where there is already poverty, splitting the family in two increases that poverty and can add to the existing conflict. The distress is compounded if the children have to move out of their school, do without holidays and have a lower standard of living than when their parents were together. One or other parent can be blamed for this happening.”