Budget cuts leave children as young as four on waiting list
CHILD sex abuse victims are waiting two years and more for vital counselling intervention while there has been a “significant increase” in reports of child abuse and neglect, the HSE has revealed. Even dedicated child services are struggling under pressure, with Children at Risk In Ireland (CARI) reporting waiting lists for child and family counselling of up to a year. Some of the children in need of urgent help are as young as four years old.
Acting national clinical director with CARI, Majella Ryan, based in Limerick, said the situation “is not good enough. When children and families have been through trauma like this they need help and they need it fast.
“If they have to wait a year or more, they will develop mechanisms – they internalise it and they don’t want to revisit it when they do get an appointment. That can can lead to massive problems in the future with far reaching effects”.
Ms Ryan explained that as an organisation CARI depends on outside funding from government and fundraising to provide services. “Our funding has never been sufficient and now government funding has been cut. The reality is tht there are far more services for adult survivors of sex assault and abuse. We are the only service for children and we are only in Dublin and Limerick”.
In response to a query from Limerick Post on the time that children have to wait, a HSE spokesperson said: “The waiting time for psychological intervention, be that therapeutic input and/or assessment, is approximately two years. We have experienced a significant increase of reports of a protection or welfare nature into child and family services. This has had a knock on effect on therapeutic services that would prioritise responding to children in care and those known to social work services”.
“Vacancies in these teams, particularly psychology, have unfortunately meant that the already lengthy waiting lists have been extended”, the spokesperson concluded.
