Tuesday, June 12, 2012

28% of calls to counselling service unanswered

http://connectcounselling.ie/images/design2/logo_top.gifThe number of calls made to the country’s telephone counselling service soared by 22% last year to 10,384, but 28% of calls went unanswered.

The Connect Counselling service yesterday published its annual figures which showed that 80% of calls made last year were by women, meaning the number made by men halved to just 20%.

Half of all those who called the service were in their 30s. There was also a high number of callers who said they had suffered from a mental illness, primarily depression.

Since the free, HSE-funded Connect service began in 2006, there have been a total of 42,183 calls made to it, often peaking around the publication of reports into institutional or clerical abuse.

This was again the case last year, when calls from survivors of institutional abuse peaked at 32% and 34% in November and December, respectively. That was the time of the publication of Chapter 9 of the Cloyne Report and the traditionally busy Christmas period, when therapists and other helplines are on holidays but when Connect stayed open for 18 straight days.

While 72% of calls were answered last year, 28% were not — an increase on the figure for 2010. Funding for the service was cut by 5.5% this year and more resources are likely to be needed, given that the service hopes to tap into 30% of survivors of institutional abuse thought to be living in Britain.

Just 2% of calls to Connect last year came from British residents, and Connect manager Theresa Merrigan said the service’s opening hours and resources would need to be expanded to cope.

"We are under pressure at various times during the year," she said. "We have a lot of repeat callers and we are engaging with these callers to support them to engage more with face-to-face counselling, which in time would free up more space on our service."

Repeat callers account for 90% of those who ring Connect and the service is also teaming up with British-based support services to increase the number of calls from abuse survivors living there.

Ms Merrigan expressed concern at the high number of younger callers: 50% are in their 30s, and 16% are aged between 18 and 30. "If our callers are in that age range that would point to more recent abuse and that is of huge concern."

* Connect is available Wednesday to Sunday from 6pm-10pm at 1800 477 477 and from the UK at 0800 477 477 77.