The Chairperson of a volunteer group and mental health charity operating across the Shannonside counties say they're missing out on funding because they don't get official support from the HSE.
Nicola O' Connor is chair of the group STOP which was originally founded by families affected by suicide in Leitrim, but has now expanded to reach across Roscommon, Longford and other counties in the North West.
A query from Leitrim Councillor Finola Armstrong Maguire at a recent health forum meeting confirmed the group got no funding or office space for counselling over the last two years from the local HSE mental health services.
Many of the clients that STOP now works with have been referred from the Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services, or CAMHS, as well as GP's and mental health nurses.
Most clients are seen within 48 hours, and Nicola O' Connor says they're seen a massive increase in children from age 7 upwards over the last year in particular. Speaking on the Let's Talk show today Nicola says that given the major expansion of the service in recent years she believes smaller groups like STOP should be given HSE support…
'Our fundraisers are fantastic but there are other opportunities we are missing out on because were are not getting in stable income from the likes of the HSE.
We can't access the funding for we'll say an admin worker or an management worker within the group from the likes of Popail or something like that, so we're missing out.
We've approached the HSE before and they've said well you're not a national organisation, but that's ok if the national organisation is providing all the services in all of the counties that they are getting the funding from.'
