Home

The Haven Hub is an after hours support centre for people that are struggling to cope or are at risk of suicide. We are based in Upper Henry Street in the red bricked Limerick Social Service Centre Building. Limerick has twice the national average of people that self harm or attempt suicide. The peak time for attempted suicide is 11pm. In Limerick most support services are closed at this time and the only service available to attend is the Emergency Department of the University Hospital Limerick. We have the highest discharge rate in the country of people that attend after self-harm or suicide (2018). While there are many complex reasons why these people that are at risk are discharged, it can often give a message that the only place available to help them cannot help. This can often result in a person being reluctant to present themselves to A&E when suicidal as they feel that likelihood is that they will just be sent home.

In order to support people that are in distress after hours we have suicide prevention trained volunteers at hand to help a person at risk to come up with a safety plan to keep themselves safe until other longer term supports can be linked with.

For people that are struggling to cope we have volunteers that will sit and listen over a cup of tea giving peer to peer support. We have links and information with local support services that can benefit them in their recovery back to wellness. This may be support groups, low cost counselling services, addiction services, wellness courses and much more.

We provide a warm and safe place for river patrol teams that find a person at the river in distress. They can come with the person to continue supporting them in s safer, more private and warm setting, or the patrol teams can refer the person in distress to our volunteers so they themselves can continue their patrols.

For families whose loved ones are missing, we provide a safe place that is close to the city centre where they can be supported while waiting on news. Families can often want to be close by to the river but not necessarily in the mist of the hysteria of the emergency services.

We have a follow-on service where we will keep contact with the person in distress until they link with the services that can best help them in their recovery.