'The centre saved my life': Supporters speak out as funding issues puts Life Centre’s future in peril

“THE Life Centre saved my life. It’s as simple as that,” Cormac McCarthy says. Cormac is 23 now, and he recently got a promotion at work. He joined the Life Centre at 16. He hadn’t fitted in to mainstream education, and his life was in turmoil.

“The education system never looked at the individual in a holistic approach, it was always ‘This is the education system, one size fits all, and if you don’t fit in, you’re gone, or you’re going to be ridiculed, or spoken down to’,” he says.

He recalls being initially wary of the Life Centre, and the people there, but he says that in time he came to trust the centre’s director, Don O’Leary.

“Don showed me that he is there for me, no matter what, and that’s something that I never experienced before in the services and systems I would have been in. 

"He was the first person to show that he wasn’t going anywhere, and that I could really trust him.

“I would have been in an institution now, or worse, had it not been for Don. I know that.”

He says the person he is now is not the person he was as he came to the centre.

“I’m proud of myself. I hold my head high, and I attribute a lot of that to Don and [deputy director Rachel Lucey], and the work they put into helping people.”

The Cork Life Centre opened on Winter’s Hill in 2000, offering an alternative learning experience to young people failed by conventional education.

Nash’s Boreen native Brother Gary O’Shea founded the centre, which was established on the Servol (Service Volunteered for All) model of education, and in its early years it tutored five students every year, up to Junior Cert.

There’s a plaque by the centre’s red door which reads: SUNDAY’S WELL LIFE CENTRE Officially opened on the 27th April 2001 By Mr Micheál Martin TD Minister for Health and Children”.

Nowadays, the Life Centre serves 55 students every year, up to Leaving Certificate, offering one-to-one tuition and helping them to thrive in a relationship-based setting. Brother Gary passed away two years ago, but his vision has been kept alive in the Life Centre, and in the 1,000 students it has helped.

In recent years the centre has been embroiled in an ongoing and as yet unresolved dispute about funding with the Department of Education. Last week, the centre’s director, Don O’Leary, warned that, after losing eight teachers over the summer, the centre has never been in greater danger of closing.

Fully qualified teachers in the centre are paid co-operation hours by the department, effectively part-time rates, without pension rights or access to incremental pay increases, and are forced to sign on for social protection payments out of term. Don O’Leary says this makes it impossible to hold on to teachers.

Thomas Mulcahy was part of the Life Centre for 14 years, serving as administrator and as a teacher. He left the centre at the end of September, saying the lack of security forced him to take work elsewhere.

“The love of the job kept me there. I started as a volunteer, and then after a couple of years I got some money part-time, and then in the last few years it became full-time, but it was never the money that kept me there, it was the love of the job. The money was just a bonus to allow me to live.”

Frustration at the uncertainty over the centre’s future eventually led him to make a decision which he says broke his heart.

“I reached an age where I have to start thinking about security, and start thinking about the long term.”

He works in the public sector now, but remains part of the Life Centre family, and he stays in touch with students and staff.

He says he is proud to have been part of a place where every young person is encouraged to find their own path in life.

“They just go from strength to strength to strength, and we listen to them, and help them to find their own voice. 

"We ask them ‘What do you want to do? Let’s find out what works for you’.”

Sixth-year student Heather Mannix (17) is in her second year in the Life Centre, and she says she found school very hard, suffering from shyness and anxiety.

“I just didn’t fit in, I was acting out to get expelled from school, it was horrible,” she says. 

“I was so glad to get a place in the Life Centre. I’m a completely different person than I was two years ago.”

She says she knew no-one in the Life Centre when she began, and, like many of her fellow students, she initially struggled in a place where nobody is “Sir” or “Miss”, and everyone is treated equally.

“Now I’m on the podcast committee, and that’s a group with members from all years, and we’d all be friends, we’d be walking down the hill and I could be talking to first years, I could be talking to teachers, we’d all be talking together, it’s not like you stick to the one group of people.”

Heather says it upsets her to think that the Life Centre might be in trouble, and she worries for other young people who might in the future need the help she received.

“Everyone should have the opportunity that I had, everyone should have the opportunity to grow the way I have. It’s such an amazing place and it’d be so sad if it was gone.”

Liam McCormick (21) attended the Life Centre from second year to sixth year. While many of us might have claimed to be allergic to school, Liam is literally allergic to school uniforms. His allergies meant he was allowed to wear tracksuits in his old school, but he says being marked out as different made him a target for bullies. He left after three weeks, with his anxiety levels making him feel suicidal.

“I don’t know where I’d be without the Life Centre, they supported me all the way through. 

"The academic side was almost secondary, they care more about your wellbeing more than anything, which was revolutionary for me, coming from mainstream education.”

Liam’s allergies include water, but that hasn’t deterred him from loving his current job, teaching young people how to row at Meitheal Mara, Cork’s community boatyard.

“I love teaching, especially in an informal way, and I suppose I got that through the Life Centre, and how much it has changed my life,” he says.

Caoimhe Cotter (17) is studying early learning and care with special needs in the College of Commerce. She says the Life Centre gave her the supports to learn how to overcome anxieties and depression, and college reminds her of the Life Centre. She feels her time in a more informal setting prepared her for third level better than mainstream education prepared some of her peers.

“Secondary school teaches you to think the way they want you to think, but college wants your opinion, and wants to know what you know.”

She feels this contributes to high levels of drop-out in first year in college, with many students floundering at that sudden cultural shift.

“Whereas the Life Centre had already respected me to help me think for myself.”

Dean Coade (17) struggled in secondary school, eventually leaving in second year, and a therapist recommended the Life Centre to him. He feels it would be a devastating blow if the centre were forced to close.

“For me and for so many people like me, this has been the perfect place for us, and it would be so sad if other people are not able to have that same experience, and it would be so sad for Don and Rachel and the other teachers too.”

Two weeks ago, Education Minister Norma Foley told the Oireachtas joint committee on education that her department has significantly increased funding to the Life Centre in recent years, providing 6,000 co-operation hours and €177,500 per year.

Ms Foley said she is committed to implementing the recommendations of the recent Review of Out-of-School Education Provision report, which Don O’Leary has said would spell the end of the Cork Life Centre.

Our son Stuart and the Life Centre

Stuart Barry, a clever, warm and popular 18-year-old, was a student of the Life Centre when he took his own life in March 2017. His parents, Pat and Catherine, say the care shown to Stuart in his time in the centre was “exceptional”. After Stuart’s death, Catherine spoke at the Life Centre awards night.

“What I said was the Cork Life Centre, that’s what it is, it’s the life centre for kids that don’t have much hope in mainstream schools, be that for anxiety, or for other reasons. It’s there for anyone, and it’s there to help. They go above and beyond, and it is a family.

“Don, Rachel, all the team up there, they were a fantastic support to us when Stuart died, and even to this day, on his birthday, on his anniversary, they go out with flowers to the grave. That’s not done anywhere.” Pat says he cannot understand why the Life Centre isn’t better supported by the State.

“If the Department of Education could only see the results of the work the Life Centre does, the lives made better, and the lives saved, surely they would see that it’s a place that must be cherished and encouraged.

“Stuart loved the Life Centre, and it loved him, and he was so happy to be a part of that family. That’s the difference the Life Centre makes in young people’s lives.”

Supporters call for centre to be supported 

Folk legend Christy Moore first met Don O’Leary in the late 1970s, when the Corkman was a Republican prisoner in Portlaoise, serving five years for possession of Sinn Féin election posters.

Recently reunited with the Life Centre director by their mutual friends, the Two Norries, Christy is playing a fundraising concert for the Life Centre in Cork Opera House on November 6.

“It’s hard to believe that the work of the Cork Life Centre is being threatened by lack of funding, and that the system does not consider it worthy of the support it needs and deserves,” he said.

“I would appeal to Taoiseach Martin and Minister Foley to intervene on behalf of children whose needs are met by the Life Centre, because Don and his colleagues have created a vital lifeline that gives a ‘first chance’ to so many students.”

Sharon Lambert, lecturer in Applied Psychology in University College Cork, believes there should be a Life Centre in every county.

“We know that the Life Centre has an incredible track record of harnessing the potential of the most wonderful young people you could meet. 

"That the centre would be under threat of closure is unfathomable and flies in the face of the overwhelming cross-party support for its work." 

Co-host of The Two Norries, James Leonard, is a community worker. When he was recovering from addiction, and seeking a college placement, his previous convictions stood against him. One door was not shut in his face.

“Don was the exact person I needed to meet at that time. I was two years on placement and volunteering in the Life Centre, and I was able to grow as a person and professionally. I will always feel gratitude to Don and the Life Centre,” he said.

James’s co-host, Timmy Long, owns a construction company, Revive Me. “It is essential that the Cork Life Centre stays open because it helps people like me who have learning differences.

“I’m someone who’s dyslexic and someone who learns on a practical basis instead of by reading books or sitting in the classroom,” he said.

“I think we as a community, as a city, and particularly those of us who have experienced any form of difficulty within the education system, must stand behind the Life Centre and ensure that its doors remain open. Actor Shane Casey, Billy Murphy from The Young Offenders, described the Life Centre as ‘an amazing place’.

“The Life Centre is somewhere that people get another go at education. We can’t all fit in the traditional form of education, and that is why the centre is a vital part of our city, a more caring and understanding city,” he said. “A life can change with another chance.”