Fears for future of city teen counselling service

Galway City Tribune – A vital free counselling service for young teens will close in September if funding is not provided by the one of the State agencies.

Last year, Youth Work Ireland Galway provided six hours of counselling per client to 190 young people – the vast majority of them aged between 12 and 14 years old. The issues raised during the sessions ranged from anxiety, self-harm, addiction within the family, parental separation, bereavement to anger management.

The service aims to intervene early in a teen’s life before their problems spiral.

The counselling takes place in the Youth Work Ireland offices in the city, Loughrea, Tuam and Ballinasloe. Last year they received €15,000 from the HSE and €4,000 from the child and family welfare service Tusla to run the service. Another €6,000 was fundraised by students and community groups.

With waiting lists continuing to grow – particularly in the city and Tuam – the service applied to increase hours and also expand into Connemara and Gort but their application for additional funding was turned down, explained spokeswoman Deirdre Bermingham.

“This is a very cost-effective service that is really needed on the ground. We get referrals from teachers, parents and from the HSE itself. We estimate it would cost €112,000 to run it properly, but the response so far is that nobody has enough funds.”
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