Treoir’s Annual Report 2018

 

During the past year, Treoir has pressed forward in its mission to support unmarried parents and their children. I would like to thank the Council of Treoir for their commitment to and engagement with the mission of Treoir. In particular I would like to thank June Tinsley for her services to the Council and to Treoir. During the year, we welcomed Patricia O’Donovan to the Council. The Council is very grateful to our funders for their continued support in 2018 for the work of Treoir. The Sexual Health and Crisis Pregnancy Programme of the Health Service Executive, Citizens Information Board and Tusla funded our range of activities to support and advocate for unmarried families and their children. As a membership organisation, Treoir values the contribution members make to our own work and to the shared work we undertake within our different organisations – offering insight, support, guidance and information to families in Ireland. I would like to thank our member organisations for their continued support.

Dr. Ruth Barrington

Treoir had another very busy year in 2018. The National Information Service continued to provide expert information and guidance to professionals, unmarried parents and to extended family members. We can see from our data that the number of calls are close to the levels of previous years but the number of queries generated from the calls is higher with over 6,400 queries in 2018. This is continuing a trend and demonstrates that calls are taking longer as they are more complex, with callers requiring information on a number of issues. It is worth noting that the number of calls is almost equal from both mothers and fathers.

The importance of accurate and factual information, provided by telephone, email, face to face and in easily accessible leaflets is critical to ensuring parents keep the needs of their children central in their decision-making, particularly when they are not co-habiting. Traffic to our updated, mobile accessible website remains high as parents seek information on the often complex legal positions of unmarried families. High levels of usage of the National Information Centre’s service is testimony to the quality of the information and guidance provided on a daily basis by the Treoir staff. The Teen Parents Support Programme continues to deliver a high quality service to young parents across the country. We were delighted to commission a study into the barriers to shared parenting. University College Cork carried out the research which also examined barriers fathers face to shared parenting and again the issue of automatic guardianship for unmarried fathers was identified as a barrier. We are thankful to the Community Foundation of Ireland for supporting this research. I was delighted to welcome new staff on board in 2018 and we said farewell to Beatrice Cronin, Clare White and Helen Bowe. I would like to thank them for their work with Treoir and wish them well in the future. Finally, I would like to thank the Council of Treoir for their hard work and dedication throughout the year. These volunteers often go unnoticed but they carry a significant burden of governance responsibility. As always they carried out their statutory duty with dignity, intelligence and a huge passion for the issues of unmarried fam

CEO Damien Peelo

 

You can read our full Annual Report here

 

Thank you for your continued support into 2019