Eleven new Family Resource Centres have been approved by Tusla nationally – none in Mayo. Yet, there are exceptional needs for these services in North Mayo. Families and individuals are being deprived of life saving and life changing supports and services available to people in other areas.
Today, I requested that the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs recognise the unique factors present in Erris and to provide funding for the establishment of a family resource centre.
Due to the poor standards of the roads and the dire lack of public service, the population of Erris cannot rely on essential services making their way into the area. It is not feasible for support services such as those provided for by Tusla through Family Resource Centres to travel in and out of Erris to meet individuals and families.
Tusla staff and HSE staff spending half their day travelling is not a best use of their time and is not conducive to providing the quality of support service to individuals and families. The reality is that families and individuals are being deprived of life saving and life changing supports and services available to people living in other areas.
An FRC located in Erris would facilitate an early intervention and prevention approach and would assist in preventing cases escalating to social work teams which are already overstretched. I would have thought that these circumstances alone would have seen a Family Resource Centre for Erris provided earlier this month when 11 new centres were announced.
Since the local Community Development Project was closed down in 2015 there is a severe gap in services for the Erris Community. As well as the one to one supports provided by the CDP, initiatives such as whole community responses to bullying, domestic violence, poor mental health, isolation and many other key issues were developed over the 13 years it was in existence. It also acted as a facilitator and anchor for parenting programmes, ASIST, Community Participation in Primary Care and other anti-poverty initiatives.
The combination of family support and community development that could be provided by a FRC would serve to genuinely tackle disadvantage and redress the inequalities preventing people from living full, healthy and self-determined lives. There has to be a recognition that areas of disadvantage exist outside major cities and towns.
Lack of access to key services only leads to pressures in other areas and a reduction in quality of life for those family members who have to travel with children who have mental health difficulties in order to access life-saving and life-changing treatment.
Young people with acute mental health difficulties still have to travel to the North Mayo CAMHS service based in Ballina which is 62km away.
