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THERE ARE ALMOST 6,500 children in State care right now. Many of them do not have a social worker assigned to them, some are on long waiting lists for services and others live in poor accommodation or are homeless.
This week, Sister Stanislaus Kennedy, who co-founded Focus Ireland, warned that the placement of homeless children in bed and breakfasts and the growing waiting lists for our of hours supports have opened them up to exploitation.
“As we gather this evening it is a harsh reality that a child found in urgent care tonight, whether as the result of living on the streets, a family row or simply falling out of the system, will not get the support of an out of hours social worker – not only does no such service exist but it is not a priority for government,” she said on Tuesday.
Figures from 2013 found 569 children in the care of the HSE did not have a social worker. One third of the people living in asylum accommodation centres are children and some were born and have spent their entire lives living in these centres or hostels.
Homelessness
In Dublin alone, one family a day is becoming homeless and across the country around 200 families bed down in hotel or bed and breakfast accommodation.
Kennedy said these kinds of figures raise questions about whether we have learned anything form the mistakes of the past, noting that “children regarded as troublesome, illegitimate or from another background being not only institutionalised but being placed in danger of abuse and exploitation”.
Leaving State care
She also noted that children who have been in State care are being “sent out into the world without any supports or services upon reaching the age of 18″.
From the moment they reach what the State deems adulthood, they are left to fend for themselves.
Each year, around 450 children leave the care of the State on turning 18. Earlier this week, Focus Ireland pointed to a growing homelessness crisis among young adults who were previously in State care.
Dónal O’Malley, chair of the Irish Association of Social Workers (IASW) told TheJournal.ie that the State, “which takes on the legal role of parent to children in state care, expects some of its most vulnerable young adults, from their 18th birthday, to manage with the scarcest of resources, many without the support of a social worker, aftercare worker or a resourced aftercare plan”.
He said supported and semi-independent accommodation services continue to close, pushing already vulnerable young people into homelessness.
“Insecure, unsafe and unpredictable living exacerbates underlying mental health, learning difficulties and other needs,” he explained.
Last year, a report on the deaths of children in care gave examples of young adults with mental health or drug issues, known to the HSE, who had died. One had been in care from a young age after alcohol misuse by his parents and domestic abuse in his home. After reaching the age of 18, his own drug problem escalated resulting in his death.
Another, who came to the attention to the HSE after an allegation he was sexually abused took his own life after leaving State care, though he had been in contact with aftercare services.
Solutions
In the area of social work, additional services can not be provided with existing staffing levels, according to O’Malley. He also called for a system that would allow rent caps to be relaxed for care leavers and deposits fast-tracked.
Minister for Children and Youth Affairs Charlie Flanagan said recently that a decision has been made to strengthen legislation regarding aftercare. However he said there was no funding available from his department to assist a not for profit organisations who are currently filling in the gaps by delivering services to children who have left State care.
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The problem is with the term state care . They don’t . Unfortunately as we’ve seen with the medical card fiasco is that the state only deals in figures ,statistics and votes .if your under 18 you haven’t a hope
6500 children in state care right now! Sweet devine that is a truly shocking number of children.
I agree that the current system does not work and a serious solution needs to be found but also at what point are the parents of these poor kids going to be also held responsible. These kids didn’t ask to be born into this world and certainly didn’t ask to be neglected and abused.
When you read some of the situation that kids have been removed from it makes your blood boil and yet they are still given access to these poor kids. Really what chance do these children have in life when their own parents, their own flesh n blood let them down. Some of the damage both mental and physical that’s been inflected there is just no excuse for.
Ok that’s my rant over.
Rosie, you are assuming the parents of these children have done something wrong, if they have committed child abuse or neglect, then why don’t the Gardai investigate and the DPP prosecute?
How can the CFA claim in 2011 that there were 541 “Confirmed” cases of sexual abuse but the DPP only had 39 prosecutions, mostly of historic cases that occurred years ago? Are social workers letting off 500 paedophiles a year? How can there be 1,500 cases of abuse a year but only a handful of criminal prosecutions???
And then you are assuming that these kids will be better off in “Care”. The suicide rate of children in “Care” is 10 TIMES the national average according to a UCD study in 2012. A child id 6 TIMES more likely to die in “Care” (at €5,000/week/child), 3 times more likely to be sexually assaulted. When the children are dumped on the streets at age 18 by their foster “carers” in most cases 68% will end up homeless. 43% of the prison population under 28 have been in “Care”. 50% of the prostitutes have been in “Care”.
As someone who helps parents wrongly accused, I can tell you that if they had committed child abuse or neglect, the Gardai and DPP would have them jailed. If they have done nothing wrong, they why should the child be denied a right to a relationship with their parents? 70% of children in Irish State “Care” are there on the basis of “Risk of Future Emotional Abuse”, the wonderful theory that they “may” have a poor outcome in life but then are guaranteed a poor outcome in “Care”.
Read http://www.NoTo42.blogspot.com and make your blood boil some more. The Irish public should be outraged at the billion a year Child Abuse Industry in ireland and how children are treated. With a bit of investigation you would also find that NGO’s purporting to be Children’s “Charities” are selling services to the CFA and the courts and receive a large amount of their funding from the public trough.
You are absolutely right; “there is no excuse”, the State have never cherished all of it’s children equally and if more people do a bit of investigation, those 6,500 children wont have to wait for Ryan Report Two before the public wakes up.
I wouldn’t let the HSE look after a goldfish.
There is a Ryan report waiting the next generation ..
We are failing our children of the nation
How do we expect children in care to function without the support structures of social services after 18?
How are we expecting our children to love ,care and respect others when we as a nation fail to give the respect ,care love them ?
We are letting children become dysfunctional and then pointing the finger of shame at them
It’s never our national fault , not anybody else’s
This is only the tip of the ice berg, BELIEVE ME!!
Rosie, you must also understand that these parents have issues themselves. It is a much more complex situation than just pointing fingers at parents. These patents were likley to have been neglected as children too. They do not know any different.
Hi Catherine, you have forgotten to mention Social Care Workers. These workers are highly trained in listening to what the childs needs are. Furthermore, Social Care workers have been taught the history of social care in nineteenth and twentieth century Ireland. I understand your frustrations with Social workers, anyone in the Social Care profession will tell you that although we are in direct contact with the child on a daily basis, we are largely ignored when it comes to reviews. Please do not confuse the care provided by a Social Care worker and the work being carried out by a Social Worker. And, may I add, a very passionate piece of writing, thankyou.
Rubbish, Social “Care” is paid €5,000/week/child and then the likely outcome for these children is that they will end up homeless, in jail, on drugs, with a crisis pregnancy or in the morgue, doesn’t sound like “Care” to me or the children that Social “Care” workers and NGO purporting to be children’s Charities are making a lot of money on these children who will then be dumped on the streets at age 18.
If you are so highly trained, have you studied the scientific study done at MIT by Professor Joseph Doyle on “Outcomes for Cared For Children”? I doubt it. Doyle found that 80% of these children had very poor outcomes in life. His study, the most exhaustive ever studied 15,000 children over a period of 12 years.
If Social Care is so good then why is the suicide rate 10 the national average for “Cared For” children according to a UCD study in 2011. 43% of the Irish Prison Population under the age of 28 have been in “Care”. A child in Irish State “Care” is 6 times more likely to die, 3 times more likely to be sexually assaulted.
Isn’t it grand that one contractor gets to bill the CFA (HSE) for €14 million a year for “Care” and €20 million of that is spent on empty beds?
Don’t make me laugh about being in daily contact with these children, most run away from “Care”. Many children don’t even have an assigned social worker, not because of a shortage of social workers, but because when they added 260 new positions bring it up to 4,000 (to look after 6,500 children from 9 to 5), the result was that they took 3.7 TIMES more children into “Care” per capita that the UK in 2011.
As one poster already pointed out, this is another Ryan Report waiting to happen. Catherine know more about the system than most people so I wouldn’t presume to preach to her on the topic.
As for your comment to Rosie, that the parents of these children have issues themselves, how would you know? Speaking as someone who helps this parents in this corrupt Child Abuse Industry, a billion a year and the ONLY growth industry left in Ireland, if these parents are so bad, then why aren’t they charged in a criminal court with child abuse and neglect? why is it that for every 184 “Care” Orders, that only ONE parent is charged with abuse?
Maybe being highly trained, you can explain to me why it is that the the CFA claim to have 1500 “Confirmed” cases of abuse a year but only a handful of people are charged with a crime? Why is it that the CFA claimed there were 541 “Confirmed” cases of sexual abuse of children in 2011 but the DPP only had 39 prosecutions, mostly of historic cases that occurred years ago. Are the CFA social workers letting off 500 paedophiles a year???
Next time you see a homeless person, a prostitute or a Big Issue seller, ask them if they were in Social “Care”, 50% will say they were.
@Joe Burns
You said that being in jail is a likely outcome for children in “care”. So people who have been in “care” have had a very hard time. However, once they reach the age of 18 years, they are adults. They still have to take responsibility for their actions. I read that, if I remember correctly, the “joyrider” who killed Gardaí Tony Tighe and Michael Padden by crashing into their patrol car had been in “care”. As the son of a retired garda, I have a duty to raise the issue of personal responsibility. There are many people who, when they were children, suffered in institutions or at the hands of their parents but they have not become criminals.
Ciaran, you have my condolences on your loss. But how is a child supposed to learn personal responsibility without the benefit of parents? “Care” is nothing more that being systematically isolated from their birth families, grandparents, aunts and uncles, being bounced around from home to home and then dumped on the streets at age 18?
Isn’t the objective of removing a child from a supposedly bad home and paying between €339 and €5,000 a week from 0 to 18, that the child would have a far better outcome in life?
“Care” is deemed such a risk by social workers themselves, that if a girl spent any significant amount of time in “care”, that her child will be removed and placed in “Care”. It’s like a self-perpetuating industry but it has doubled in size in a decade.
In attempting this Eugenics Program of removing children for spurious reasons, they are creating far bigger social problems. Social Work is one of the largest frauds ever perpetuated on society.
@Joe Burns
You misunderstood my comment. I didn’t say that my dad died. He is alive and well. I am just saying that, if I lost a loved one, I might not be sympathetic towards the killer even if he was in “care”.
Children with corporate parents aka social workers are 6 times more likely to be abused than with natural families.
So clearly the social workers are failing as corporate parents.
As one girl said to me on leaving state “care”
Care is the one place where you can legally rape and abuse children and get paid for it.
We see the failures of state “care” from the past and we claim to cherish all the children, but these are words.
We hand over the “business” of child protection to HSE as we did to the Nuns and priests years ago- and trust them.
I would not trust a corporate parent social worker with a pet rabbit, and that is from witnessing their parenting/caring skills.
Too many entering the profession- like the nuns and priests- to derive sadistic pleasure from making children and parents suffer. Too many with schadenfreude disease too.
If a natural parents fails in the parenting role and abuses, s/he is brought to court, but the corporate parent/social worker is never prosecuted because the state picked him/her and the state does not prosecute itself as their barristers will tell you.
Children are just figures to Ministers etc- just a money making commodity for most so called carers- not all.
When you hear children in care referred to as disposable kids- then you know we have not learned anything from the past.
Social workers are the new do gooders with the same god complex as the old nuns and priests.
The Gov has given them too much power.
Oh and saying there are not enough social workers is nonsense- well one example is one social worker coming to court re a case brought 18 social workers for support to try and scare off the opposing solicitor and barrister. Now we paid for those 18 social workers to come in a pack to try and intimidate the opposition. No one knows because of the closed court system. But its a waste of our money and other children lost out.
Mind you I have yet to see a social worker “TUNED” to a child. They are not taught to listen and tune , only to tick boxes etc.
I know exactly why the whole system is a failure ad why retraining and mental assessments of all “care workers “is essential. Too many abused as children themselves, with no healing done, and abuse children in their care. Its nothing new of course.
http://www.childrenscreamingtobeheard.com/multibillion-pound-childrens-industry/
THE MULTIBILLION POUND CHILDREN’S INDUSTRY.
At the end of the day- HSE is a psychopathic enterprise and children are just business.
Thomas Sheridan explains it so well,
So you’re saying all social workers are uncaring and the entire HSE is psychopathic. Seems a bit harsh.
@Catherine Mill
I cannot stand over your allegations. It is wrong to say that dozens or hundreds of social workers are neglecting children without proof.
There is little that can be done when the whole process is a secret. This is how Government has decided to run its child care services.
If they wanted us to be proud of how they handle child care issues they would tell us what they do.
The age of keeping the identity of the child secret has to come to an end. It only protects the abusers.
It is a disgrace that asylum seekers will have children while in DP so they can improve their chances of staying here on treasure Ireland.
Using children like pawns is wrong
How about addressing the actual article Larry? Children in state care are at 6 times more risk of abuse, rape. That’s true whether they are Irish (most of them) or not.
Plus ça change!
Sr. Stanlaus Kennedy has no credibility commenting on children.
She had her chance when she was running St. Joseph’s orphanage in Kilkenny. She left alcoholics baby sitting the children for the evening & night once she finished her day at tea time. She went back to the comfortable convent, eating the best of food and living in luxurious conditions.
Needless to add the alcoholics had a field day abusing children which has all been well highlighted in the media since. Solicitor Albanian represented some of those abused. Kennedy denied knowledge of any abuse. Shows she was not fit to be in charge of children or employ unsuitable lads to babysit.
Sr. Stans only contribution now is to condemn social workers or anyone else working with children. Blame everyone but herself. Deflect from any of her wrong doings.
Go away Sr. Stan. Reflect on the children you neglected and left to be cared for in totally inappropriate hands.
Hi Joe Burns, You seem to be confused as to what Social Care is. It is not just about putting kids in residential Care, it is about preventing the removal of kids from their homes by working with the parents. Residential Care should only be used as a last resort. If you are telling me different then I have no option but to believe you. I would be appalled to think this is going on. And furthermore, I do not earn 5k per week, this money is made by private residential services, I work for a charity. I have a degree in Social Care and have been practising in the homeless sector for the past year. The failings have been a lack of aftercare when a child reaches the age of 18 and leaves the care system. My organization lobbied hard for a change in the legislation in this area and have been successful. You see Joe, a Social Care Worker must strive for change that’s what we do. I hope I have cleared this up for you, we are not the problem.
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