This article is from page 22 of the 2014-08-26 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 22 JPG
THE cash strapped Rape Crisis Centre in Clare is forced to close its doors from Monday for one month.
The service that provides counselling and services to victims of rape and sexual abuse throughout the county has been forced to take this action due to lack of funds.
The Rape Crisis Mid West, of which Clare is part, made the decision to close the Nenagh centre during the month of July and Clare in September when it was apparent it could not make up the annual shortfall of € 120,000.
Verena Tarpey of the Rape Crisis Mid West explained, “We are part funded by the Government to carry out our services – the service in the entire mid-west, taking in the three centres including Limerick, Clare and Tipperary cost approximately € 450,000 – we face an annual shortfall of approximately € 120,000 which we must bridge by fundraising.
“We receive no government funding to service the overheads connected with the Ennis centre and must fundraise locally to raise this deficit. We did not foresee us being in a position to bridge this significant shortfall this year and made the decision to temporarily close Ennis in September, Nenagh in June and provide a skeletal service in Limerick for the summer,” she said.
As well as dealing with a financial shortfall the service is also working with a waiting list of 30 people who are in need of long-term counselling.
Those on the list must wait approximately three to four months for medium- to long-term support and counselling, and that timeline has now been extended again as a result of the temporary forced closure of Clare’s only centre.
Ms Tarpey said it was important to highlight the fact that despite the financial challenges facing the organisation, emergency cases and crisis calls would be dealt with immediately.
“It is important to distinguish this from crisis support that we provide where no person will be turned away. For example, if a person rings our centre looking for support in the immediate aftermath of a rape, either he or she will be seen immediately, often within an hour or a couple of hours. Likewise, if a person rings us in relation to past abuse and are in crisis at present, we will offer them support within hours or days. All those on the waiting list are monitored and contacted and are offered up to six weeks of support counselling while they are on the waiting list,” she said.
Meanwhile the Sexual Assault Treatment Unit (SATU) in the midwest, will continue to run uninterrupted.
This is an out of hours service for 12 hours from 6pm.
The unit is a forensic facility where someone who has been raped or sexually assaulted can be forensically examined.
In the mid-west, the SATU unit is activated by the Garda only when a report is made and is not a walk-in unit. Rape Crisis Midwest provide a trained volunteer to attend the forensic examination when called.
“We have a roster of volunteers every night of the year. The role of the SATU volunteer from a rape crisis perspective is to provide crisis support to victim/survivor on initial attendance to the SATU,” said Ms Tarpey.
“We are also there to support victim before, during and after the forensic examination to provide support, advocacy and information and the reporting, examination and SATU process to liaise with the forensic examiner, nurse and any attending garda on the person’s behalf.”