It's hoped that a new way of helping families and loved ones of people suffering from mental health difficulties in Roscommon could be rolled out nationwide.
Family-Focused Practice aims to include all loved ones of a person with mental health issues in their care and treatment, as well as focusing on the wider impact mental health treatment can have on people such as parents, or even children.
The scheme has been successfully used in Roscommon and east Galway for the last number of years and now a new report has been published to examine the effectiveness of the programme, as well as the challenge and opportunities it faces in the coming years.
Mary G. Killion is a Principal Social Worker managing mental health social workers across Roscommon and East Galway.
She says the programme needs extra resources to help as many people as possible.
"So one of the things I have looked for in the document is a family support focused practitioner lead that this would be their sole job in terms of delivering them and we have met with the Minister for Mental Health Mary Butler with this document and we use every opportunity to highlight it and we hope in time recourses will come our way that we can develop it."
