Kathleen Funchion on child recovery and rising energy costs

Thanks very much. I just have a few points I want to make myself. Firstly, in relation to Barnardo's and the excellent work that's done, just if you wanted to maybe in relation to coming out of COVID and the need for a recovery for children in particular and you know how they've been affected from a whole range of views, not just from a school point of view but from absolutely everything health, mental health and you know we've obviously seen during the pandemic there was I think the point was made by somebody earlier that child poverty existed beforehand but it was maybe highlighted even further during the pandemic. So if you just wanted to maybe make some comments in relation to that or your thoughts on it and also in relation to the recent increase in energy costs because I know just from people coming into the constituency offices people are really panicking and in some cases they're only starting to see increases now but they're panicking and for the you know and nearly kind of trying to stockpile which they don't have the means to do. So just if you wanted to for Barnardo's and then I'll come back with one or two points for Focus Ireland as well. Thanks. Well maybe if I address the issue of children out of after COVID, Stephen you might talk about the energy costs. Just to say we're aware across all of our services that children are highly anxious as are their parents. It's a really uncertain time and we think we think that's really important is that children have access to a range of supports depending on the degree of their anxiety. So at some level what you can do is you can provide classroom-based supports where you just talk in general to the classroom about all feelings are okay, some of us get very anxious, some of us less anxious and we can support each other. So that's a very sort of universal type type service. And I know at Barnardo's we run a program called Recovery Programme which is part of our Roots of Empathy Programme which is all about that. Normalising feelings of sadness, loss, anxiety, out of control. But then there are some children who need more than that because their anxiety is of more of a worrying nature and they need access to individual support through a qualified project worker from someone like Bernardo's or if it's a more serious level of anxiety they do need access to qualified mental health specialists. And we know from earlier conversations there's a real gap and there's far too long a waiting list for psychology services. So we know that's a massive gap. I also think that this is linked to education as well as a lot of children are anxious about their capacity to catch up because of because of how much they've missed out on schooling. So I do think that if in a school context the children are provided with a reassurance that they will be given some extra support that will that will make a big difference. And I have to say one of the things I am delighted about and I'll put it out there is that schools have remained open and are open because I think that just is essential for for the structure that it provides to children from a social emotional point of view not just from an educational point of view. And evidence or evidence from a survey we did during Covid was that children the parents were really well aware of that. The importance of school from a social emotional point of view for you know for their children. Maybe Steve might want to come in on the on the poverty issues in the field. Yeah so in relation to the recovery for children on the back of Covid I think there's probably two points and Suzanne sort of raised most of them. One is that there needs to be probably direct support support additional support for children. You know that's because of issues around their own social and emotional progression and development around their educational development. You know there have been some steps taken by the Department of Education whether or not they go far enough is probably for a wider debate. But there has been some regression for children in terms of their development and we need to make sure there's sufficient support to get children to be where they want to be and where they probably should be in terms of their development. But we also need to remember is that children are going to be very much impacted by what's happened to their parents throughout Covid and for a lot of children their parents and particularly children experiencing disadvantaged or from disadvantaged backgrounds their parents may have faced additional adversity and hardship over the last 18 months or so. So we know from the survey that we carried out that there was you know parents there's a huge increase in financial stress in in terms of overall stress in terms of mental health issues, big issues around our big increase in tensions within the home, social isolation of parents and what we know is that those parents for a lot of parents they're going to need additional support now going forward and if they don't get this support there's a concern about what the negative impact on the children will be. So we'd certainly be advocating that there needs to be more family support available to those parents parents so that they can get the support they need to address any issues that have built up throughout Covid. In terms of the energy costs you know it's something certainly we've been having discussions with Saint Vincent de Paul for example we're seeing that you know where families are struggling to meet energy costs and we've been fortunate enough at the moment that you know the weather hasn't been terrible but it's it is going to get worse there's been multiple increases in energy costs across multiple providers some providers have even pulled out which is reduced competition and what we really need to do is make sure that no child is living in a home that is inappropriately heated and what steps that are taken there are practical steps that support agencies will provide like such as ourselves trying to work with energy providers to make sure that there's payment plans in place and that energy is not switched off at any point but then there's a wider plan I mean there were steps taken by the government to increase fuel allowance but will that go any way near meeting what those increased costs are this year absolutely not so we really need to think about that whether or not we think it's appropriate that children are at risk of living in inappropriately heated homes whether or not that's acceptable and what the government thinks should be done about that going forward and all the repercussions that happen or have on a child's developments living in a poorly heated and poorly lit house Thanks I agree and particularly in relation to the fuel allowance because there's a huge amount of people that just narrowly fall out of actually qualifying for that and they really really struggle so you know sometimes I think that there isn't really any sort of as we said earlier in this meeting joined up thinking in relation to that and and actually tackling the the root of the problem and I just want to agree with that point as well in relation to the schools I do think there's a huge amount of children struggling like they've literally lost a year and a half of school and in certain cases it feels like everything's just gone back to normal for them even though it hasn't gone back to normal and you're just into your next class and I just think the the potential impacts for children emotionally in relation to that because if you start struggling and you start falling behind and then you think oh I can't do it and we all know the vicious cycle that can lead to so I'm just glad to hear you mention those points just the last point I want to make is just for focus Ireland and it's more I suppose your own opinions on the situation I do think that point is interesting in relation to Waterford City Council I suppose not every local authority would have the the resources to manage something like that but there's two groups I want to mention one firstly is the hidden homeless in terms of people who are staying in very overcrowded conditions maybe staying with family members or friends and I know I come across it sometimes as well where family record they really genuinely want to help out but they're nearly afraid now because they don't know how long somebody will potentially be with them what might have been a few weeks or a few months is now a year a year and a half and like sometimes local authorities and I can kind of understand where they're coming from because they're under pressure and they're trying to manage you know if two or three families are presented as homeless who really genuinely doesn't have a bed for that night but you're nearly seen as sorted but you're not sorted and the reason I raise that is the impact on children because children will often worry in a context and nobody you know it can take a while to pick up that they've been worried they're hiding it they're trying to cope themselves they can see parents are stressed and they're they're trying to not bring that issue up and then you have all the things around what maybe they might have been able to do in the past having friends over birthday parties you know and just stuff like that that can be gone from them so I just wanted to I really just kind of wanted to raise that group because I just find that it's it's it's very very difficult for people in that situation and sometimes they can fall through the cracks and the other issue I wanted to mention was in relation to domestic violence and I totally understand people coming out of domestic violence but I often get very frustrated at the fact that it is the woman often and that's not to say I know men experience domestic violence as well but we do know from the research and figures that it is mainly women it is women and children that will have to leave the home and are presenting to whether it's a refuge or emergency accommodation and you have the person sitting in that house and I understand you have to have due process and everything but should we be doing more in terms of I would understand that it would have to probably be a short period of time where people leave to get out of that situation but that they can actually return to that home they are the person that's responsible for the children and ultimately the children should be entitled to their home just that's more your your opinions on those situations so whoever wants to come in on those thanks Thank you for those uh those questions uh chair um on your first point um we know from Focus Ireland's own research that the most common reason for families becoming homeless is losing uh what has often been quite a secure accommodation in the private rented sector um very often because the landlord is selling up or or moving family in those reasons which can be given under Irish laws as legitimate reasons for for evicting somebody and that that's the most significant largest group of people becoming homeless but very often uh what happens after that eviction and before they enter homeless services is that they go and live with somebody else they go and live with wider family or or as you're saying friends what the american homeless organization is called doubling up and then that eventually breaks down because it just isn't possible for two families to live in a one-month family home as you say even the best of relationships family or friend relationships what starts off as a an act of kindness becomes something which could have you know quite long-term negative impacts on relationships because of the tensions and then the family moves into homelessness and in one way of looking at what causes of cause causes homelessness um the local authorities say to families becoming homeless why why are you entering homeless services now and the family would say oh well we fell out with the sister or we fell out with friends so it goes down as a social conflict but in actual fact the real reason they lost homeless was that lost their home was economic reasons uh the landlord the our failure to deliver enough homes our failure to protect tenants in the private rented sector that's how they lost their home they try to prevent themselves going to homelessness by staying with wider family and friends for long sometimes long periods of time and then we characterize their reason for going to homelessness as as of social causes and relationship breakdown and it completely leads us to misunderstand what's actually happening in terms of driving so many families into homelessness um and we need some better way of measuring that so in in in dublin one of dublin regional homeless executive one of the most successful things they've done is a program which um they call it preventing homelessness it would be again in the sort of the technical language it would be diversion so a family comes in that's facing eviction and they may offer them homeless hat which is a genuine prevention of homelessness or in some cases they convince the family to go back to their own parents or to to wider family and stay there and that's you could argue that that's better than many of the the emergency accommodations that might be offered but that's never counted it's never measured and there's been no evaluation or understanding of what the consequences of that for the family in homelessness or in the long term in terms of the impact on the children and so we're saying that this is a what dublin regional homeless executives we're doing is a really good measure but good measures need to be evaluated as well as poor measures you need to understand how they could be improved and what their consequences and this measure and in a much less organized way it's we hear it right across the country local authorities saying are you sure you can't stay with your mother or are you sure you're not and say with your cousins and so on i think that will be coming back it hasn't been around for the last two years but it will be coming back in a very strong way um uh now that numbers are going up and we need to understand it better in terms of numbers in really before we can know so that we can put it into our equations for ending homelessness and also knowing how to respond to it and relation to domestic violence i mean that it's very clear that that's part of kelly's story in terms of she told us so movingly about the the the consequences of that domestic violence is in itself appalling but it doesn't the fact that it so often leads to homelessness is a bit that we could be sort of spending a bit more attention on a hopelessness for the the victims of the homeless of the domestic violence and so there is much more that can be done to obviously to deal with domestic violence but an awful lot more that can be done to prevent it turning into homelessness um we have a major study which we've been doing over the last couple of years with paula mayock in trinity college dublin which will be published before the end of the year which looks at exactly that question of how do what happens uh to to households with the domestic violence where as you say usually the mother but but but not always but usually the mother flees with the children and ends up in homeless services and and if you want to find it uh probably the most egregious example of siloization and lack of integration of our public services when somebody is in crisis the way we respond to those families fleeing domestic violence probably would be up there in the you know at the at the worst that we could we could do so we'll be publishing that before christmas and maybe uh if i don't particularly looking for another gig but uh uh if you were to invite uh paula mayock the researcher in that uh to come in at some stage from that report is out we we've delighted to go into to more detail of what we discovered in that research and what the recommendations emerging from it are i should say we're doing that with the housing agency and with the department of justice in in partnership um and it's been um uh the partnership and working on the reporters has been really really positive and along with domestic violence charities and i hope that the uh level of cooperation we've had in doing the research will follow through into implementing the recommendations um thanks very much for that i i actually can't wait to to see that because it's something that i have found just over my own course of work both first of all as a counselor and then as a td it can be very frustrating and you can see in certain situations where women unfortunately end up going back to the home because it's just so difficult and the you know with the kids and everything else that goes with it so it's we're definitely um failing in in that regard that's for sure um that kind of concludes our our questions i'm if anyone wants to make any concluding remarks from either organization i can give you the opportunity to do that now if i if i could care look um i suppose the one item that uh we would just like to emphasize um before before we close um is around the whole situation and need for child support workers and child support uh help um and at the moment through the support of hsc social inclusion tusla and indeed the public donations um we employ uh 10 and a half people uh in a child support worker capacity across across dublin um they typically work with a caseload of about 15 kids um at a time and that works out that that we cover about between 150 and 160 children at any one time uh now of those uh at the moment there's the 1806 children homeless in dublin in emergency accommodation and we would estimate that probably about 25 percent of those would fall directly into having a need for for this type of child support work um so and that's about over 400 children if we could bridge that gap between uh the 150 160 children and the 400 i think it would be a huge resource uh that uh could be of real benefit in dealing with trauma and homelessness uh for children right into the future and that's probably a key thing and a key ask that we would make in terms of uh prioritization uh of the committee if at all possible thanks very much um miss conley do you want to make any concluding remarks i suppose i would just like to say how delighted i am that attention has been given to the issue of generally speaking women and their children having to flee the home and i just think that would make a massive difference in terms of children's well-being if if that could if the children and the generally the mother could could remain in the family home and the the alleged perpetrator could leave and i think that would be that would be phenomenal um success for an outcome for children and generally speaking um mothers so i think that would be really worthwhile i would just like to add i suppose in terms of the context of of um what pat's asking further in terms of childhood support workers and bernard is we're asking for family support workers i think what's really important is that is that that whatever services are needed are available across the country and i think it might be that that different organizations can provide the support that's needed in different parts of the country and we draw and we draw on each other's expertise so example in some areas across the country we work very closely with focus we provide particular type of service and bernard does another so i'd hate to see a situation where where where one agency ends ends up um not being or could not just be ours or focus but there could be a range of organizations that could provide this type of support is what i'm saying so that it could be rolled out it could be rolled out nationally because families problems don't don't happen in isolation and kellyann your your your fantastic contribution really highlights that families need overall support and children and their parents need that and they come with a range of issues with which they need support and different organizations can provide that support so let's so let's think about that when we're when we're being creative about use of resources because that does really encourage cross organizational working together which is what children and families need thanks very much um kellyann you wanted to come in did you hi yeah just uh lastly in relation to the the last question um just to answer it in terms of uh you know domestic violence and like in in my case um it was we lost our home because my ex-partner threatened the landlord so that's how we actually became homeless in the first place um but in other cases um it's it's really to be honest with you it's the woman and the child or the man and the children that have to flee because it's not safe for them to stay there or go back there because that's where the perpetrator knows they are so that's why they have to go into some form of hiding or some other safe place until they gain stability and the right supports around them so that's why unless there was some you know new form of supports built around them um so that they in their own home uh that would probably bring the guards and stuff like that involved but then again at the at the minute i don't see um how that is possible so that's why and parents and their children do have to go somewhere safe and it's hidden because otherwise it's just going to bring the the perpetrator back because they know where they are so i just said that i'd bring that in so yes yes no um thank you yeah thanks very much and it's a good um it's a good example as well as to how we need to ensure that it's not the women and children that are paying the price um you know in terms of their safety in terms of their physical and mental health but also in terms of them potentially facing homelessness um so just thanks very much to the two organizations i do want to in particular thank kellyanne it was fantastic to have you here and to hear your contribution um and we really do appreciate it and um just a sincere thanks to miss suzanne connelly from bernardo's and mr stephen moffat as well and then mr pat denigan and mr mike allen from focus ireland we really appreciate the contributions and i'm sure that we'll have further engagement as well