Dr. Joseph Duffy:

There is always a need to provide more. As my colleagues stated, there is often the difficulty, which we see in our own service, whereby the continuing professional development opportunities can be made available but people are really trying to work through a waiting list and really trying to devote the time to see the young person right in front of them. It is about looking at the whole experience. Sometimes, staff might be on short-term contracts and may be thinking that they must put the head down and do the work here. It is about looking at the whole person.

When we talk about the training of all of these mental health professionals, we are also talking about their own experience within third level. This is a very important time for having a very positive experience around their mental health because they are going to be the contributors into the future. It is, therefore, about not giving them a very stressful experience, then they just about come out and start in a role, and then feel another stressful experience. The number of graduates who say "Well actually mental health is not for me and I am going to leave that now because I want to do something else completely", is a huge pity because we actually want to encourage more and more people to enter into the professions.