Mr. Conor O'Leary:

"Psychosocial" is a combination of two words. The first is "psycho", which refers to "psychological" and everything to do with your head and emotional well-being. The "social" aspect is that it is a community. You are meeting other cancer survivors and other people in that group setting. It is not all group settings. We have individual services as well. It is that community-based aspect. The Cathaoirleach mentioned how important it is to speak to someone else who had gone through cancer. That is what we find. We upskill volunteers. A client would come in, avail of the services, and then when they recover and no longer use the services and have passed the period of two years, they are welcome to come back as a volunteer. They would then be upskilled. They would go on various training programmes. For example, one survivorship programme a lot of the centres provide is the cancer thriving and surviving programme, which is run by the NCCP. The facilitators on that programme include someone with lived experience, which can be a cancer survivor or a family member of a cancer survivor, and the other is a trained professional, for example, a counsellor, therapist or somebody with a professional qualification.

When people first ring the doorbell, it is a really huge thing for anyone to do. Oftentimes, when people come to Purple House, they say that this has been fifth time they have come to try to ring the doorbell and they bottled it every time because it is such a huge thing to do. That first step is so important for people. That is why it is really important that the first person a client meets when they come into a cancer support centre is sympathetic, has empathy and is very aware of how important that first step is. It is not easy to reach out for help, especially if in your private life you are of a certain standing or have a particular role. When you have to put your hand up and say you need help now for this, that is a really big thing.

What typically happens then is there is an intake, where basically an assessment is done. A trained volunteer or member of staff will sit down with the person and hear their story and exactly why they have come to the cancer support centre. A needs assessment is then done at that intake where we find out through that dialogue if they need counselling, bereavement support, hospital transport or something for the children, and some sort of support around that. Then what typically happens is the suite of services is outlined to the client. A client can avail of any of those services. For example, they may come in to a centre like ourselves and receive counselling in the morning. Then in the afternoon they may go down to our cancer rehab gym and receive physiotherapy. They may then spend time in the coffee dock meeting other people who have had similar experiences. They can spend a period of time there availing of any services that they feel are beneficial to them.