Daughters of Charity Child and Family Service (DoCCFS) has today released its 2024 annual report, which identifies growing challenges facing families \u2013 from those accessing early years supports to those engaged in child protection and welfare services.<\/p>\n
The not-for-profit organisation, which marks 40 years of service this year, provides a range of therapeutic and supportive services to children and families based in the greater Dublin region, including Dublin, Louth, Meath and Wicklow.<\/p>\n
The report, titled 40 Years and Counting, Building on Strong Foundations, showed an 11pc increase in referrals to therapeutic child and family centres last year.<\/p>\n
There was also a 25pc rise in referrals to family centres since the Covid-19 pandemic, and a 14pc increase in children being referred for mental health or anxiety.<\/p>\n
It comes as parental mental health is cited as the leading reason for welfare concerns reported to Tusla.<\/p>\n
More than one in four (27pc) children in Early Childhood Development Service (ECDS) are presenting with additional needs, and 32pc of cases remain open after Tusla assessments for further safety planning.<\/p>\n
The research also showed that 15pc of cases within Dublin Safer Families Service involved the reported use of weapons, while 23pc had a threat of death present.<\/p>\n
Last year, the organisation provided nearly 31,000 client contacts with children and families. It supported more than 4,200 people, including over 2,200 children, over 2,000 parents and guardians, and over 1,600 families.<\/p>\n
The charity is now calling for urgent and system-wide reform to support families in crisis, warning that the current system too often re-traumatises those already in crisis.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, its impact report also highlights how housing shortages, barriers to accessing mental health services, and delays in assessments of need continue to aggravate the difficulties faced by children and parents.<\/p>\n
Dr Tracey Monson, DoCCFS\u2019s CEO, said the report highlights the \u201cvaluable work our highly experienced and skilled staff is doing to make up for a system that is retraumatising children and families already in crisis\u201d.<\/p>\n
She said the charity experiences rising demand across all its services.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are deeply concerned by the increasing levels of need and harm affecting those who come to our services \u2014 particularly parents themselves,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
“This is compounded by their inability to access school places, housing, assessments of need, and State-provided mental health supports.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur experience \u2014 over 40 years serving communities and more than a decade of research with Irish universities \u2014 clearly shows that the families we work with are among the most vulnerable in Irish society.<\/p>\n
“While we continue to support and advocate for them, a collective recognition of a traumatising system and a whole-of-government response is urgently required to bring about meaningful change,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Daughters of Charity Child and Family Service (DoCCFS) has today released its 2024 annual report, which identifies growing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173333,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[2540,103,61,60,410,411],"class_list":{"0":"post-173332","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-adrianna-wrona","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-mental-health","13":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173332\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}