Tusla launches National Child and Family Support Week in Leitrim

Tusla Child and Family Agency has launched its first ever national promotional drive to highlight the range of services it provides as part of its Prevention, Partnership and Family Support (PPFS) programme.

Tusla National Child and Family Support Week will feature special public events across Sligo, Leitrim and west Cavan and will be backed up by a national and regional advertising campaign across media platforms.

There are now almost 863,000 families with children in Ireland and some 1.68 million children in families in Ireland, according to Census 2016. Tusla provides extensive support services to assist all parents, children, and young people as part of its PPFS programme. This programme aims to stop problems experienced by families from getting worse, or from developing into a crisis.

Tusla National Child and Family Support Week aims to create widespread public awareness of Tusla’s high-quality PPFS programme, leading to increased engagement with its services by families, parents and children.

Some events in the areas include:

• Public awareness and information stand with Tusla staff and partners in Johnson's Court Shopping Centre, Sligo 2-5pm Thursday 20th
• Public awareness and information stands will take place also in Carrick on Shannon, Ballinamore, Carrigallen, Mohill, Ballymote and Enniscrone throughout the period.
• Open evening at the C.R.I.B Youth Project, Rockwood Parade, Sligo for parents and young people. Light refreshments and live music from some very talented young people. All welcome.
• Tusla in Association with Sligo County Childcare Committee will run a digital media campaign “Promoting Digital Health for all the family”. Campaign will run from the 17-21st September – Tech Free Tuesday, screen time info, safety online, enabling safety, cyber bullying and digital footprint.

As well as a number of events taking place over the week we will have a number of events throughout the month.

There are many more events taking place. For more information contact 071 9149682.

Senior PPFS manager for Sligo Leitrim Michelle Ni Thiarnain said: “Tusla is a cornerstone in supporting families within their communities. If a child or family needs support, Tusla is there to help. The best way to improve outcomes for children is to intervene at an early stage to resolve problems and prevent harm.Our PPFS programme seeks to work with families at an early stage to resolve problems, to prevent harm, and to improve outcomes for children, young people and families. We do this by working collaboratively with our partner organisations to strengthen families and communities.”

Majella McGovern, Co-ordinator, Mohill Family Support Centre CLG commented on the public awareness and information stands: ‘‘From these information sessions it demonstrates that all agencies are working in collaborative approach to ensure an effective and a consistent line of communication for service users. The outcome that we hope to achieve is that parents are more aware of the services that they can avail of to assist and support them in their local community with concerns they have related to their child/children no matter what the child's age’.”