The announcement comes as the charity, who provide psychosocial care for seriously ill children and young people, welcomed their 175,000th camper,
Barretstown has announced Ireland's first ever Psychosocial Clinical Research Hub.
The announcement comes as the Ballymore Eustace-based charity, who provide psychosocial care for seriously ill children and young people, welcomed their 175,000th camper.
Psychosocial care is the medical term given to care that addresses the full picture of a young person’s recovery, including their emotional wellbeing, confidence, independence and self-esteem.
They have also launched a new strategy which aims to provide more support and restore more lives, through areas such as research-based evidence, plans to establish a training centre of excellence to improve the impact of the care for seriously ill children, as well as it's commitment to advocacy to ensure psychosocial care becomes part of every treatment plan.
Speaking on Kildare Today, CEO of Barretstown, Dee Ahern described it as an "exciting new chapter".
"We're always asking ourselves: 'can we do more?', and what more can we do to help these families and more families and the establishment of this research hub so we can carry out our own research and better understanding of the needs of our families and the families we're not reaching."
She also stressed the importance of psychosocial care and her belief that it should be a "natural extension" of the care that children receive in hospital.
The growth of Barretstown is also quite notable, Ms O' Connor describing the development as "quite incredible":
"It's quite incredible, in 1994, when Paul Newman set up Barretstown there were 124 children that came to that first camp, now every year we're serving over 32,000 children and family members for our programmes."
The full interview can be heard below:
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