In March 2020, our Psychological Service closed the in-person provision of Time Concentrated Therapy in compliance with the HSE guidelines relating to Covid-19. We set about putting in place an alternative means of continuing our essential service to our trainee solicitors. This involved ensuring that the team of Student Counsellors were upskilled to provide safe, confidential online counselling via zoom on iPad. Appropriate therapeutic guidelines and consent protocol and procedures were swiftly put in place.

While we had piloted the programme as a platform in December 2019 it was only when the pandemic began that we broadened this out to all of our PPC students. 

In April 2020 when the inaugural PPC2 commenced online we were fully equipped to provide a seamless virtual Psychological Service Programme through iPad. This would not have been possible were it not for the pre-existing integration of Apple iPads into the PPC.

The complete access to technology across the student body meant no trainee solicitor was excluded on the grounds of technology from having access to additional emotional and psychological support. While this was never in our thinking when the Law School adopted this technology, it has proven to have been pivotal to our successful management of such a challenging time for our trainee solicitors.

When trainee solicitors experience support and professional interventions, they are optimally equipped to manage the most demanding of times. In the period since the pandemic began, we have offered approximately 2,500 virtual sessions using zoom on iPad. We saw a dramatic increase in the participation of males in counselling which we attribute at least in part to the online format, and we also had shorter wait times to access support as we were not reliant on accessing rooms on-site.

Overall the Psychological Services were busier than ever and Zoom on iPad also allowed us to offer a complimentary series of engaging ShrinkMe talks with interesting and sometimes international guests whom we would not have had the means to engage with previously.

iPad allowed us to be responsive and creative and meet our trainee solicitors exactly where they were at a time of great need.

• Find out more about Law School Psychological Services