Ms Maeve Lewis:

As a practising psychotherapist, I see the impact of childhood trauma on a person’s parenting skills. Very often people struggle despite their best efforts. They have issues with attachment or physical contact with their children and may be terrified that a hug could be abusive - what is abuse and so on and so forth. That has an ongoing impact on their children’s lives. I believe profoundly that with good trauma therapy those issues can be overcome to some extent but not totally. The provision of expert trauma psychotherapy would address that issue in the Bill.