The 16 finalists for the Health Services Innovation awards are as diverse as they are innovative. Áine Kerr reports on the projects that are making a real difference.
The Health Services Innovation awards to be announced tomorrow feature 16 innovations within community and health facility settings, including pioneering adoption services, speech and language therapy interventions and child psychology drop-in centres.
The 16 finalists, drawn from 260 applicants, feature nominees such as the Children's Sunshine Home, the Headache/Migraine clinic and the Adult Homeless Multidisciplinary Team.
One service, which successfully reduced from three years to six months the waiting time for adopted adults and natural parents to obtain information and commence a tracing process, will feature in the awards presented by the chief executive of the Health Service Executive (HSE), Prof Brendan Drumm.
The establishment of the "Preparation for Search" seminars followed the closure of St Claire's adoption service in Co Meath in 1996 which led to the transfer of some 3,000 adoption files to the North Eastern Health Board.
As waiting lists increased and social workers and applicants became increasingly frustrated with the tracing process, a team of social workers started exploring the possibility of using group formats to ease waiting lists. Within groups of 25, adopted adults were enabled to discuss issues prior to embarking on the journey of searching for birth relatives and to make an informed decision about instigating the tracing process.
Compared with 2002, when 147 applicants had to wait three years to complete the tracing process, only 25 applicants are now on a waiting list with the average waiting time reduced to six months, according to Marie Lynch, principal social worker with the North East Regional Adoption Service.
"Waiting lists have been reduced, levels of frustration have diminished and team morale among social workers has increased," she says. "Essentially what we have done is to take 25 individuals into a group rather than a social worker meeting each person for two hours," says Lynch.
One of the other innovative services nominated is a child psychology drop-in service in Clonmel and Cashel, which enables the public to obtain immediate information or an advice session with a psychologist. Established to ease the long waiting lists for psychology services and appointments, hundreds of worried parents, anxious teenagers and concerned relatives and friends have used the service for advice, information and reassurance.
Most notable has been the increasing number of cases relating to parental separations. In addition, behavioural problems, bereavement issues and school-related issues including bullying and exam stress are most commonly attended to by the four psychologists at the centre.
Principal psychologist with the HSE in south Tipperary, Maeve Martin, says that in many instances names have been taken off waiting lists or clients directed to more appropriate services following a consultation at the drop-in centre.
But in cases where clients have to remain waiting, their anxieties are contained by having their questions answered, according to Martin. "Often the parent will come in with the child and have an informal chat. We can very often get to the bottom of the child's anxieties and issues and inform the parent that a psychological assessment is not required," she says.
"Sometimes we will have friends coming in worried about someone who is becoming increasingly reliant on drink or drugs and who appears to be at risk of depression . . . In some cases we have been able to fast-track cases we judged as a suicide risk," says Martin.
The similar problem of inadequate intervention in speech and language therapy has also been addressed by a service operating in 124 pre-schools in Co Wexford which are attended by children aged from two years and 11 months up to five years of age.
Prior to the intervention service, most children were assessed for serious speech and language disorders between the ages of six and eight, according to Fiona Ryan, clinical specialist speech and language therapist.
Over the course of five years, Ryan alone has assessed 300 children through the early intervention service.
Follow-on assessments have shown that 45 per cent of those treated in pre-school were not referred for services two years later.
"As people know, speech and language problems left undiagnosed can lead to dyslexia and reading problems, so the longer assessment is left, the more difficult it can be for a child. It's never too late to be assessed but it becomes an uphill battle," she says.
The winners of the awards will be announced at Dublin Castle tomorrow night.