Image: Shutterstock/Monkey Business Images Image: Shutterstock/Monkey Business Images CURRENTLY, THERE ARE almost 4,000 children and young people in Ireland who are homeless and living in emergency accommodation.
For example, a student who is homeless now may not be homeless in June, when the exams take place, or visa versa.“The key problem is that no one is formally tracking these children and there is no specialised policy on their education needs in school,” Ward said. Families – often with very young children – have had to share beds in single hotel rooms for months at a time.
Focus Ireland’s family homeless action team project leader Niamh Lambe spoke to TheJournal.ie this week and provided examples of students they worked with who were homeless and in exam years. “Some of the hubs have study rooms or places which are suitable for that, but not all of them do and none of the commercial hotels, which is where most people are, have anything like that,” Allen said.
Over the past few years, children’s rights groups, non-governmental organisations and independent overseers have time and time again warned that long-term homelessness can have a devastating effect on children. Mike Allen noted that these students face issues ranging from a lack of confidence, bullying, being singled out and losing friends as a result of their circumstances. These issues, it should be noted again, would coincide with the stress students are under when it comes to exam preparations.
Michelle Share, one of the authors of the report, outlined some of the living conditions homeless families face: Likewise, Barnardos CEO Suzanne Connolly thinks it is understandable for the Department of Education not to keep such data. “This includes the National Educational Psychological Service who work through a problem solving and solution-oriented consultative approach to support schools to meet the needs of individual pupils,” it said.“Schools use these additional resources to meet the identified needs of their pupil cohort, including the additional needs that may arise for pupils experiencing homelessness,” the Department said.
As the report suggests, teachers do feel helpless, they feel powerless and they feel powerless and they feel that they’re ill-equipped to effectively support children and their families, but as the report also shows is that they’re doing their best despite the lack of supports and resources. “Despite advocating on behalf of families in writing letters and that, they do feel very frustrated that it has little impact.
Fine mess
This regime and let’s be quite clear about it, that’s what it is,, have no interest in the people they serve, have no respect or regard for our wellbeing, these kids are our future and we all deserve a home !!