Ms Ger Kenny:

I have been with Little Seeds Arch Club for the past nine years. We have two occupational therapists working for us for seven years and we have been lucky. Just last week we had a music therapist and a play therapist working on well-being. A lot of it can be down to word of mouth. For example, a parent might know of a therapist and give me the contact details. I make contact with them, meet them, talk to them about the club, say what we are looking for and what the age group is and so on. We have been really lucky and any therapist we have in Little Seeds Arch Club we have had for a number of years and we have been able to keep them. It works both ways; we are so delighted to have the therapists in and working for so many families and the therapists are delighted too because they see the work that is being done in Little Seeds Arch Club and they see that we can reach out to so many families.

I would always say to our families that if they are on private waiting lists they should stay on them and if they are on public waiting lists they should stay on them. What we can offer our families is something that can keep them going in the meantime. We will have a sibling workshop, we have mindfulness and in October play therapists will be working with some of our children who have a lot of anxiety around school. These will be much smaller groups so we could have 20 to 22 children in each of the groups we have in Little Seeds Arch Club. For the therapists, this new therapy service that launched with us last week would have much smaller groups. The music therapy will be on this evening so I had better get back in time for it and that is just for six young teenagers. We have never had that before and it is something new we are offering our families. We are delighted to say we are not Government-funded but that we are funded through fundraising and we can offer these therapies to our families. We got a lot of the therapists through word of mouth and I made contact with the therapists, met them, did their Garda vetting and so on. I spoke to them about the club, the families, the ages of the children and so on and everybody has been on board. We are lucky in Dublin 15 and I am delighted with the service we have been able to provide but it is not Government-funded and it has started from a little seed.

We have been assisting other groups. For example, in Athlone they opened their own arch club last Sunday and I was like a proud Mom looking on from the side. I spoke to the girls about Little Seeds Arch Club on a Zoom call and about how we operate in Dublin 15. Balbriggan is opening its own club in the coming weeks and Clondalkin and Skerries have clubs in the pipeline. Nenagh has a big group of 100 children attending and all of it has stemmed from Little Seeds Arch Club.

The work that can be done is amazing. We are a voluntary group, there are no wages and nor do I want any wages. It is all about the hours put in and it has been created from my son being diagnosed nine years ago when there was nothing out there for him. I could see how it was more difficult for him socially, including to make friends, because I have two older children, and I wanted something in the area for him. It started from that little seed and it has grown and spread through other groups and clubs setting up, which is fantastic to see.