The first three months of 2010 have been extremely busy and reflect the trend that we saw in 2009. We had 34 women and 47 children staying the refuge. For the first month the refuge was full but we had very few children staying (mostly older women, single women or women with children in care). The majority of children came in during March. Some of the women have been staying in the refuge for longer than normal. This is due to a number of reasons such as delays in obtaining Rent Allowance for them, issues around their immigrant status, addiction or mental health issues. From the beginning of March we had to put a waiting list into operation as the demand for refuge was so high and rooms in other refuges were also hard to obtain.

 

We also had 16 new women come to our offices in the Gort Road business park for support and information.   During this period 198 support visits for new and existing clients were conducted in the main office and 296 support phone calls were made to women who could not make it into the office.

 

We received 103 helpline calls from January – March.

 

Our outreach clinics continue to remain busy with Shannon being the busiest.

Shannon – 34 support visits

Ennistymon – 11 support visits

Kilrush – 14 support visits

Scarriff – 7 support visits

Killaloe – 13 support visits

Total of 79 support visits during this time to outreach clinics.

 

Both of our transitional houses have been fully occupied during this period.

 

26 women were accompanied to court during this time (by staff and volunteers) and 51 accompaniments were provided by staff to other agencies such as social welfare, community welfare officer, local housing authorities and legal aid.

 

78 play therapy sessions were conducted during this period in Shannon and Ennis.