20% of calls to abuse helpline go unanswered

One in five calls to a counselling helpline for adult survivors of childhood abuse are going unanswered because of staff shortages.

Connect expects a 12% increase in calls by year end — about 8,300 calls, compared with 7,376 last year.

However, counsellors are only able to answer 80% of the calls made to out-of-hours telephone based service for abuse survivors.

The out-of-hours telephone-based counselling service supports adults who experienced abuse, trauma, or neglect in childhood, It operates from 6pm to 10pm every Wednesday to Sunday.

Connect manager Theresa Merrigan welcomed the increase in demand for the service and the improvement in calls answered — last year 25% of calls went unanswered.

However, she was concerned about the number of calls that the service did not have the capacity to answer.

“The 2013 figures show that the service has challenges with capacity: 20% of overall calls are received when the service is closed and 20% of the calls received during opening hours are not answered due to staff capacity.”

Ms Merrigan said an increasing number of callers to Connect were talking about isolation.

“Caller presentations are becoming more complex as people fall out of the net around other services available.

“Many callers present with psychiatric histories and are not availing of other professional or community support. Isolation is one of the key issues that callers talk about.”

Between Oct 2012 and Sept 2013 the family (40%) was the most common abuse setting followed by the community at 26%.

Institutional abuse accounted for 16% of calls, although this figure increased when there was public attention drawn to the issue. It increased to 22% when the Magdalene Report was published earlier this year.

More men are contacting Connect, with the gender breakdown showing that 64% of callers were women, 35.5% men and 0.5% transgender. The gender breakdown was up to 80% for women in previous years.

Just over half of callers (51%) reported sexual abuse. Of those who reported abuse within families, 27% said it was perpetrated by the brother and 25% said their father abused them.

One in 10 callers said they had been abused by an uncle and 7% said they had been abused by a grandfather.

It also emerged that 17% of institutional survivors, who contacted the service, reported an experience of sexual abuse.

Connect was established at the request of survivor groups to provide an out-of-hours phone counselling and support service to people who have suffered abuse. It is funded by the HSE.

www.connectcounselling.ie.