Altnagelvin pilot supporting paramilitary victims should be rolled out elsewhere, Monica McWilliams

Ms. McWilliams, a member of the Independent Reporting Commission, made the remarks at the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee.

There has been a downward-trend in paramilitary attacks but hundreds of children have been the subject of attack over the years, she said.

"The numbers are actually dropping but one is too many and we have just this week published some figures, we’ve seen them, that 384 of those were under 18 years of age and that's quite a shock over a trend there of many years.

“I think that's what society will respond to more than anything and indeed Mitchell Reiss [a fellow commissioner]...has referred to it as child abuse,” said Ms. McWilliams.

In written evidence to a NIAC inquiry into the effect of paramilitaries the IRC praised the ‘Connect Programme (based on the Scottish Violence Reduction Unit’s Navigator Programme) in which youth workers based in Altnagelvin Hospital Emergency Department engage with young victims of violence and perpetrators of violence and provide follow-up support, building a wrap-around them including work with their wider family’.

Ms. McWilliams said this should be rolled out to other hospitals.

"We have made recommendations about when an individual is brought to hospital as a result of severe injury that there should be a wrap-around project put in place which has been piloted in Altnagelvin to ensure that either that individual gets the support and is not just back in the community again without the mental health support, without indeed social work support, and I would hope an advancement towards work.

“That then would lead to the possibility of some employability in order to keep that person safe in the future and with a different kind of future than going back into a community where this is likely to be a recurring event in that young person's life and indeed in an adult’s life.

“So we are looking at the evaluation of that wrap-around project and I am very glad to see it. We have learned from the experience of the violence reduction programmes both in Scotland and England and this project will be expanded out now I hope to other hospitals.”

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