Ms Suzanne Connolly:

I thank the Chairman. Barnardos warmly welcomes the opportunity to speak to the committee on this important issue. I am appearing today alongside my colleague, Ms Laura Keane, who is a project leader working in one of our centres in Limerick.

Barnardos provides front-line services to vulnerable children and their families in our 45 centres throughout Ireland. We offer a range of early intervention targeted services in our centres, in family homes and in schools. Last year, Barnardos worked with almost 18,000 children and their families, helping them with their children's behavioural, emotional, educational, physical and social needs.

Since the onset of Covid-19, children and young people have had to stop doing all the vital things that had been part of their everyday life and crucial to their well-being. They were excluded from meeting with friends, going to school and taking part of activities, all of which impacted negatively on their social and emotional development, as well as their mental health.

The impact of Covid-19 is not equal across all children. Many of the children we work with experience a huge amount of adversity in their lives. They are living with domestic violence, parental addiction, poor parental mental health, acrimonious separation and poverty. Covid-19 and its impact was an additional burden on these children. We saw parents deal with worsening mental health, increased substance use and conflict within the home. This has inevitably led to some parents struggling to cope themselves. When parents cannot cope, it impacts on their children's well-being and mental health.

Our 2021 back to school survey, in which almost 1,500 parents participated, reinforces this. It found that 52% of parents had faced increased mental health difficulties, 50% experienced increased stress at home and 15% reported increased substance use. A substantial portion, 29% of parents, stated that they were concerned about the impact these issues were having on their children.

Additionally, our back to school survey found that 63% of parents said they were worried about their children's emotional development, coping skills and ability to talk about their emotions. Some 58% of parents were worried about their children's stress levels, while 57% of parents were worried about their children's anxiety. Furthermore, 49% of primary school and 46% of secondary school parents stated that they were concerned about their children's social skills, peer relationships and ability to interact with others, while 47% of primary school parents and 58% of secondary school parents were concerned about their children's loneliness and their children not having the level of social connections they needed.

The transition out of lockdown has continued to be difficult for children with whom Barnardos works and it affects their development. A significant proportion of children are struggling to engage with education, for example. They are struggling to adhere to routines, follow rules and even sit still in the classroom. For them, this is due to anxiety and being concerned that they are too far behind their peers to catch up. As a result, their learning has regressed and sometimes, they are finding real difficulties with self-esteem and anxiety.

A degree of anxiety is normal. All children and adults are anxious at times and most children and adults have the capacity and skills to manage this anxiety and not let it impact too much on their everyday lives. Some children have families and friends who will support them through periods of worry and stress. For many children, however, anxiety is immobilising. It prevents them from leaving their rooms or homes and stops them from making friends, going to clubs and schools and generally living their lives. We know and research demonstrates that enabling parents to support their children within the family is one of the most successful ways of addressing children's mental health needs.

One of the key things we do in Barnardos is support parents by working to improve their relationship with their child by introducing and maintaining routines in their homes and helping parents understand how to manage their children's behaviour. All this is done through our Partnership with Parents programme, which by strengthening parenting capacity improves children’s mental well-being.

As well as providing parental support, we also recognise the importance of providing direct support to children by helping them learn how to understand and manage their emotions. We do this through our This is Me programme, which works individually with children to support their social, emotional and cognitive development and integrate their hearts, bodies and minds.

During Covid-19, our family support services adapted to respond to the issues families were facing. This meant staff responded to parenting challenges, providing them with the flexible support they needed to make sure they could focus on parenting as effectively as possible. We believe that children and families can overcome the additional mental health issues and challenges that have resulted from the pandemic. To do this effectively, however, they will need appropriate support, which will require adequate provision of universal services, as well as specific targeted support.