Ms Stephanie Whyte:

There should be a support system in place in addition to that structure. The children and lone parents we are working with are very isolated.

It is a matter of being able to engage in these kinds of structures if there is a history of addiction, if the parents are in recovery or if one parent's former partner was an addict with him or her at a certain time. Many of the parents we work with have taken the decision consciously to move away from that so they are very isolated and very alone. Then their children tell us they worry about their mam or their dad, so the children own the emotional mood in the house and the worry and the difficulties. It is a matter of engaging in some form of structure in this regard. Whatever the model being described, there has to be a support system people can access to prepare them for it in order to be able to share their worries, concerns and fears, to manage their anxieties about that and to prepare well. In that way, their children can be just left as children and know that mam is getting support somewhere else and do not have to be embroiled in the process.