IRELAND
RTE News
The number of abuse survivors using the Catholic Church’s confidential counselling and support service has fallen for the first time since it was founded four years ago.
The 2014 annual report of Towards Healing published today, records that 1,100 people received face-to-face counselling.
This is a reduction of 9.1% on the 2013 figure.
The number of new clients contacting the service fell from 426 in 2013 to 348 last year.
There was also a reduction in the numbers re-engaging with the services which declined from 72 in 2013 to 58 in 2014.
Towards Healing took over from the Faoiseamh service, which had provided counselling from 1996 to 2011.
Since 1996 a total of 5,470 people have been supported by both Faoiseamh and Towards Healing and a total of 365,820 counselling sessions have been provided.
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