The number of people seeking services from the Family Resource Centre has increased by almost 40 per cent in the past three years, according to the annual report of the Family Resource Centre National Forum.
The service aims to “combat disadvantage and improve the functioning of the family unit” by focusing on partnerships between voluntary and statutory agencies.
“There are more people unemployed,” said the forum’s chairwoman Claire Dineen. “There are students coming out of college who have no employment… there are a lot of people out there with little or nothing to do, so you have people coming back to the FRCs, back to the education programme and retraining.”
The report outlines a steady increase in service demand during the past three years. The 2010 figure of 193,000 contacts rose to 264,313 last year. There are 106 Family Resource Centres in the State.
The report also included statistics of the type of services sought. The number of children accessing childcare services in 2012, ranging from full-time daycare to sessional and drop-in services reached 10,742 while 16,051 adults participated in personal development and life skills courses.
Over 31,000 people contacted their local FRC for information on back to education entitlements and skills-linked courses. Over 5,000 people received counselling last year while 623 children received in-house counselling and a further 282 participated in bereavement support programmes.
Although the FRC employed 1,170 staff last year, a total of 2,787 people worked on a voluntary basis. “The numbers are up and that’s also because of the recession, because they’re people who are unemployed and they want to give back to the community who had supported them before,” Ms Dineen said.
Sinn Féin deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald said she wasn’t surprised by the report’s findings.
“If you take the combination of people out of work, very limited job opportunities… the cutbacks in disabilities services and education provision that they have had… all of these things mean that more than ever the kinds of community-based family resource services are absolutely essential,” she said.
“And in many communities, in my own community they’re part of the glue that’s holding a very fragile social situation together in a time of austerity and recession and pressure,” she added.
“I don’t want to see the resource centre face any more cuts. We’re going to have an October budget – we know that the mathematics are tight – but the Government needs to now get real and recognize the huge social and economic value of the work these centres do.
Ms Dineen believes early intervention helps save costs for the state. “If we can support families and individuals to resolve challenging circumstances before they get out of control, we reduce the need for State-supported interventions and extra social welfare supports further down the line.”
And she hopes those who need assistance will actively seek it.
“It’s really important that families remember that the Family Resource Centres are there to help them.”