Local women’s refuge sees calls double during 2020

The Esker House Women’s Refuge Centre in Athlone recorded a 106% increase in calls for support to its Outreach and Court Support services last year compared to 2019.

Such has been the demand for the service that the management team at Esker House are now seeking to acquire two additional properties in Athlone that they can lease on a short-term basis, and they have issued an appeal to anyone who may have a suitable property to urgently make contact with them.

Despite the fact that they put a contingency plan in place at the start of the pandemic to ensure that they could continue to support clients, Esker House was forced to close two of the rooms in their Athlone bungalow due to the reconfiguration of the premises to ensure the safety of service users and staff.

Acting Manager Linda Tiley said “additional properties had to be found in the community last year in order to provide refuge, but these are no longer available to us, so we are now looking for two additional properties within Athlone to lease for a couple of years.”

Ms Tiley says the on-going coronavirus pandemic continues to have “a dangerous impact” on the lives of women and children across the Midlands who are living with domestic abuse and, as the only 24-hour refuge centre for the victims of domestic abuse and their children servicing the entire Midlands area, demand for the service has never been higher.

Over the past year, Esker House has seen an increase of 30% in contacts to their service from outside agencies on behalf of clients, and Linda Tiley said they had adopted “a collaborative approach” with both the local Disrict Court and local Gardai to ensure that women could continue to be provided with “the specialist support required to keep safe.”

As has been the case for many other organisations, Esker House has had to provide many of its services remotely during the pandemic, which has presented its own challenges. However, the immediate implementation of a contingency plan in partnership with Athlone District Court meant they could continue to provide “safe outcomes” for women attending Court to obtain a domestic abuse court order.

“Our local Gardai remain vital key stakeholders as well as a key referral pathway in reation to accessing domestic abuse services and keeping women and children safe” according to the Esker House Assistant Manager, who also paid tribute to the role played by staff of the District Court and Gardai assigned to the Court.

Throughout 2020, Esker House processed over 500 requests for support and so far this year they have dealt with over 180 requests. “In relation to women and children using the refuge, we found that we were permanently full all of last year, and as soon as a room became available it was immediately filled again” says Linda Tiley, who added that it is a tribute to the staff and volunteers at the refuge that they were able to provide “a full suite of services” to their clients over the past year, despite all the Covid-19 restrictions that were, and still are, in place.

The stark figures relating to the increase in demand for the services provided at Athlone’s Esker House come against the backdrop of the launch last week of the Women’s Aid Annual Impact Report 2020 which highlighted a 43% increase nationally in contacts with their service.

The report stated that the Covid-19 pandemic, and the measures to combat it, have had “an unprecedented and exhausting impact” on victims of domestic abuse.

Speaking at the launch, the CEO of Women’s Aid, Sarah Benson, described the statistics as “shocking” and added that the figures released were “just the tip of the iceberg of the numbers of people who are suffering at the hands of those closest to them, and who need protection and support.”

Ms. Betson said “One in four women in Ireland are targeted during their lifetime by current or former partners, a shocking one in five will have been abused by the time they are just 25 years old – many for the first time as teenagers in their earliest intimate relationships.”

Esker House Women’s Refuge and Domestic Violence Support Service in Athlone can be contacted on their 24 hour Helpline at: 090 6474122 or email info@eskerhouse.ie

TOP: Stock photo