Mr. Gary Broderick:

In trying to formulate services and supports that might be necessary, first and foremost, we are not dealing with mainstream in the sense that we often have the extreme end of things. If that is reunification, it means there was a breakdown and children had to move out. There needs to be patience with the family and that means time. For relationship-building and giving people space, there is a need for patience within the system. This might take a while.

We speak of trauma-informed practitioning but I speak more of trauma-and-violence-informed practitioning. That means having staff in schools who are aware of the impact that will have on children and how they might present. The transition back to mammy is great but mammy may be distressed or whatever.

We have named it and, unfortunately, in many families we know in SAOL, domestic violence is regularly present. It is huge. The system around the woman may not be that secure and there may not be safety. It is about looking to see where safety might come in. Also, you can get out of practice of being a mammy if your children are away. It takes a while to get used to minding the kids again, giving over your time and giving over everything to the children. It is about simple things like how to be emotionally available for the children. With our services in SAOL, one of the most beautiful things is giving mothers the support and watching as they realise "Oh, this is what we're supposed to do." In the children's service in SAOL, the children - and the mammies more so - are trained for their preschool years. We work with one- to three-year-olds. It gives mammy two years of training and getting ready for preschool. We have a staff team who are addiction aware working with the children and we work with the mammies when they are there. I am not saying it is perfect in any way, shape or form but it is about thinking a little bit differently. When you are feeding the kids, maybe you need a bit of practice in cooking again. If you have been living in hostels, you lose the skills of cooking and preparing and managing meals. It is about being aware of those things.

A gap we see is around women using drugs who get pregnant. Social workers step in two weeks before the baby is born. Could we bring that back a few weeks or months to allow the process to be worked on earlier? I know social workers are stressed and stretched, but could we do that? When we go in two weeks beforehand, we are in crisis. We are just maintaining the crisis.