Chairman: This morning we will meet representatives from the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, ISPCC, and Barnardos to get an update on the impact of Covid-19 on the mental health of children. I welcome our witnesses this morning, who will be providing us with an update on the challenges faced by organisations working in the area of child welfare. From Barnardos, via Microsoft Teams, I welcome Ms Suzanne Connolly, CEO, and Ms Laura Keane, project leader of Barnardos in Limerick. I also welcome Mr. John Church, CEO of the ISPCC, who is appearing in the committee room.

.....Mr. John Church:  Our greatest engagement with the greatest number of children would be through our traditional Childline phone line and online. We introduced the web chat service and kids love it and interact with it. We also do face-to-face services like Barnardos but through a different model. Those children come through referrals from GPs and Tusla, mainly. To take a typical phone call, I would first note that it is confidential. A child rings or contacts us through the web chat service and that child and our volunteer both have a pseudonym. Immediately he or she is told that this is non-judgmental and non-directive. We believe everything the child says and that is the process. The volunteers are very well-trained and are also supported through their own couselling intervention because it can be very difficult sometimes. The majority of our outcomes or interactions are very positive. We get repeat callers. We get children calling on Christmas Day, which is actually quite a popular day, sometimes just to say what they got for Christmas. Then in the afternoon they are worried about the alcohol level that has risen in the house. It ranges from children just being lonely with nobody to talk to, to having difficulty with their exams. They can call as often as they like but we are working towards empowering the volunteer to refer that individual to some of our other services. We have often directed other children and young people to services outside our own if we feel there is an issue of suicide, alcohol, drugs or whatever.

Chairman: To what service would you refer them?

Mr. John Church: Pieta House would be one. We have a good relationship with Pieta.

Chairman: Does that service see children under 18?

Mr. John Church: It does if they are touching 18. Sometimes we get children of 19 as well. These are issues that our volunteers are very well-trained on and we can deal with them for children under 18 but it is about building the resilience of the child. The conversation with the child is important. We do not provide solutions. We do not direct the child as to how to do things. We establish what their network is and what their supports are first and foremost and encourage them to come up with a solution. That may take a number of phone calls or online chats but we believe it is the way to do it, as opposed to prescribing for every child. Let them come up with the answer and they can ring any time. Some of our busiest times are online chats in the middle of the night when the house has gone very quiet and the parents are in bed.

At least they can now go online and have a chat with somebody, who could be in Limerick, Castlebar, Drogheda or elsewhere. We have a number of units around the country. Children get exactly the same welcome and go through the same process in each instance.
Ms Laura Keane
 
The typical journey for a parent or child who comes to Barnardos begins with referral, which can happen through a number of avenues. We take self-referrals from parents, referrals from schools, public health nurses, doctors and community projects, and we take a number of referrals from Tusla's child protection services and duty and intake social work services. There is a very broad range of services referring into Barnardos, including families themselves. The journey then proceeds to an assessment of the child's needs, taking into account his or her unique strengths and challenges, and the strengths and challenge within the family unit. The idea of the assessment is to determine what the parents are able to bring to the table, what other supports they have around them that can be drawn on, and what is available through school and other services. The purpose is to come up with a plan of support to target particular areas of need for that particular child. For each child, an individual, tailored plan is drawn up based on his or her unique circumstances and needs.

Many of the interventions we provide are for parents, as I mentioned, with a focus on developing their insight and skills in supporting their child's development. There is a focus on how to support their relationship and communication with their child, with an understanding that this is one of the best ways to support children's well-being. Other areas of support we offer to parents following the assessment include support in providing structure and positive routines at home in order that children have a predictable environment that supports their overall development. We also work with parents on understanding their children's social and emotional needs and identifying practical ways in which they can make sure their children are achieving in those areas. Parenting input is something we regularly offer families after we have completed an assessment.

The other key service we offer is one-to-one work with children. This is often focused on developing their emotional literacy, including understanding their feelings and how they can manage their behaviour more positively and make more positive choices. We work to help them to communicate and interact more positively with family members and peers. That is very broadly the journey on which a parent or child would embark when they come to Barnardos. The focus is on providing specific, tailored plans that respond to each family's unique circumstances in the context of the particular community in which they live.

The benefit of this very direct model of support is that it means we mostly work in family homes and are really tuned into the challenges and strengths going on around a child. It allows us to develop very connected relationships with parents and children because we are in their world and we know what that looks and feels like. Our model is very much strengths-based, with an emphasis on meeting parents and children where they are at and drawing on the positives that are already there in terms of making changes. That is a very broad run-through of the process. It is different for every parent and child who comes through the door. Ms Connolly may wish to pick up on anything I missed.

Chairman: No, that is fine. I am aware that Ms Keane has to leave soon but I have a couple more questions before she does. There has been concern during the Covid-19 pandemic that there was an increase in parental misuse of alcohol, prescription drugs and illegal drugs. Gambling has also come to the fore as an issue. Can Ms Keane say a little about the impact of that behaviour, particularly around alcohol misuse? I do not know whether anybody really understands the impact it can have on a family. Even the individual engaging in the behaviour may not understand its impact, particularly on children. Has Barnardos seen an increase in alcohol harm and drug misuse? What are its findings in that regard?
Ms Laura Keane
 
We certainly have seen an increase in problematic coping strategies among parents because of the stress they experienced during the pandemic. Many of the parents and children who come to Barnardos were experiencing multiple challenges in terms of their well-being before the Covid crisis and had a great deal of adversity to manage in their lives. A significant number of the parents we work with come from very difficult childhood experiences themselves. During the Covid period, we definitely saw an increase in drug and alcohol use, a rise in conflict and violence within family homes and an exacerbation of existing parental mental health difficulties. Obviously, all of that had a direct impact on children's well-being and mental health.

On the specific point about an increase in drug and alcohol use in homes, what we saw and heard from families was that their home life really became like a pressure cooker during the Covid lockdowns. Those issues may have been in the background already but, suddenly, everybody was at home together, all day and every day, and there was stress on top of stress and none of the normal outlets, releases or reliefs in terms of school routines, work or social connections within the community. We certainly saw an increase in that type of pressure. In terms of children's direct lived experience, they saw parents being less emotionally and physically available to them because they were more likely to be using substances. Routines fell away in family homes and there was a sense of unpredictable, chaotic home lives, without any of the buffers that were there before Covid such as community activities and hobbies and, critically, school routines. There was a sense of people being in a pressure cooker scenario without any of the usual outlets.

Chairman: Mr. Church referred to telephone calls in the middle of the night. Does he believe there is a connection there with the pressure on families during the Covid period?
Mr. John Church
 
Due to the nature of our service, we often have engagements with children during a violence event. We are almost like the emergency department of child services in the middle of the night. For all the reasons Ms Keane outlined, Covid led to a pressure cooker situation in which not only were children unable to leave the home but the alcoholic or perpetrator also could not leave. There was a major issue in that regard. As to how it manifested in terms of children contacting us, there was a fear before and after incidents of violence as well as anxiety at certain times of the day because they knew their father or mother was going to start consuming alcohol, get violent and abusive and take it out on them. A lot of support, including supports for our volunteers, was needed to deal with those issues.

I referred in my opening address to our online services. The 24-hour web chat facility and visits to our website saw a really significant increase because children did not want to be overheard. That is our hypothesis anyway. It makes perfect sense that if the perpetrator heard the child making a telephone call, he or she would be subject to the sort of abuse that was the reason for making contact...

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