Barnardos workers avoid unpaid leave

Staff at Barnardos will be spared having to take unpaid leave this year due to an improved financial situation, while the charity has called for the introduction of a State child trauma service to help meet demand.

Barnardos operates its national bereavement service for children from an office in the Cork suburb of Mahon and is dealing with 36 families, while another 24 are on a waiting list.

Project leader Gina Cantillon said there had been an increase in recent years in the number of cases due to traumatic death, including suicide and homicide.

Ms Cantillon said it was time for more resources to be put into specialist intervention to help children cope with traumatic loss.

“We do not have child trauma specialists in this country,” she said, referring to State services. “The NHS [in Britain] does have it and the HSE does not have it.”

The Barnardos Family Support Centre, which covers the southside of Cork City, operates from the same office and its assistant director, southern region, Stephanie Whyte said similar services were needed in other parts of the country.

“There are whole parts of County Cork that do not have a family support project near them so we sometimes have to provide it,” said Ms Whyte.

Ms Cantillon said while the bereavement service also operates from an office in Dublin, some clients attending the service in Cork travel from four hours away.

“Children should not have to travel for hours in a car to get intervention,” said Ms Cantillon, adding that there was scope for offices in places such as Donegal, Galway, Limerick, and Athlone.

Barnardos had to restructure the bereavement service — the only one of its kind in the country — in recent years due to straitened financial circumstances. It also provides a national help line manned by volunteers and the team also provides community support to schools and other agencies on request.

Now it has revealed that, for the first time since 2011, staff will not have to undertake mandatory unpaid leave after its financial situation improved last year.

In 2012 and 2013, staff in Barnardos decided to take a week of unpaid leave during August in a bid to ease financial pressure in the face of cuts to statutory funding and demands on fundraising.

A Barnardos spokesman said the charity’s statutory funding has fallen by 17% in the past four years but, thanks to efforts made last year, staff will not have to take unpaid leave this year.

Barnardos is pursuing a fundraising target this year of €6m.