In summer 2003, when Limerick woman ‘Rachel’ (not her real name) was 11, a member of her immediate family was murdered.
“I was struggling. My older sisters were struggling. I didn’t want to go back to school, didn’t want to be a part of school.”
Her mother enrolled her in Corpus Christi national school in Moyross, where she was offered bereavement counselling.
“Looking back, the counselling was in a sense play-therapy,” she says. “I just thought it was great to get out of class for an hour but I knew too I was going there to open up and talk. I knew it was a safe place. I looked forward to going because it was so hectic at home, you didn’t get a chance to talk. I didn’t want to burden my family because they had a lot going on.
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“I wasn’t forced to do anything at the therapy. I could sit and be peaceful. Or I could open up. I could bring anything into the space and I really enjoyed that because I wasn’t questioned or quizzed or forced to say how I was feeling. We’d sit and do activities and it was based on a workbook.
“In class you could be sitting there building up thoughts in your head, worrying about what happened or what would happen. Then you’d go to the therapy hour, go through the process of getting it out, go back to class and go back to learning.”
She progressed to and completed secondary school. In the interim she had a family and is now studying social care.
In 2014 she enrolled her son (5) in Corpus Christi. “We were struggling massively with his behaviour. He couldn’t sit down, couldn’t concentrate.” She faced long HSE waiting lists when trying to get services for him. He was diagnosed with autism aged six.
“He was running around because he wasn’t able to sit down. He tried to flood a classroom, put toys down the toilet. We might laugh about it now but back then it was his way of saying, ‘I can’t focus. I need help’.”
The school offered music and play-therapy to help him with his emotions.
“It helped massively,” says Rachel. “He is a completely different child. He is top of his class, getting ready for secondary school. He is so intelligent, absorbs everything. He is a great chess player. He is just so interested in learning. But if he hadn’t got the help, where would he be now? I don’t think he’d even be in school because his behaviour was so, so bad.”
The fact her son received therapies in the school was vital, she says. “It made it seem normal. Before, I was bringing him to appointments in HSE buildings and he didn’t want to go. He was asking, ‘What’s wrong with me?’. Now that he gets it in school it’s so much easier on him, it’s so normal, so accessible. I understand it is expensive, but if their mental health isn’t okay they’re not going to be able to learn.”
