Failures in at-risk children’s aftercare revealed in report
A suitable aftercare place for the girl returning to Ireland from a secure unit in the UK was only identified at the eighth time of asking and just four days before her 18th birthday.
The case is among 30 included in the latest volume issued by the Child Care Law Reporting Project (CCLRP), with the difficulties in securing suitable placements for children who need therapeutic support evident among the cases.
New aftercare legislation came into force on September 1 last year, making it a legal obligation for Tusla, the Child and Family Agency (CFA) to prepare, review, and update aftercare plans for children in care.
Yet in the case of the girl —who had been in care since infancy and required ongoing supports in accommodation, health, and education, and family support — no plan was in place as the clock ticked down to her 18th birthday.
In the case notes, published today, the judge hearing the case remarks: “I see no pleasure in putting pressure week in and week out on the CFA, this is not the role of the court.
It is effectively Groundhog Day in here every week in relation to these placements, at some stage it is going to take an incident of the serious nature envisaged as the degree of frustration escalates. This case is another case which clearly could have devastating effects, it is nearly the eve of her 18th birthday.
He added: “There is no point in putting [young people] in secure care if there is nowhere for them to go afterwards.”
In another case, video-link evidence was given in a High Court hearing regarding the progress and future of a 17-year-old teenager in a UK psychiatric therapeutic hospital.
The teenager, who would soon turn 18, had spent six years in total in secure care and his onward care package required the giving of extensive medical and psychiatric evidence so that a suitable step-down placement could be identified.
Out-of-State placements have been criticised, including by Government-appointed Special Rapporteur on Children, Geoffrey Shannon, but Tusla has said that while it is actively hoping to become less reliant on these placements, in a small number of cases Ireland cannot provide the specialised services that some young people require.
In another case included in the latest volume, a nine-year-old boy with complex needs had five placement moves in 13 days.
The social work team involved told the court that there was an incredible dearth of foster care and residential placements in the country.
Other issues to emerge in the reports are drug and alcohol abuse, learning disabilities, and mental health issues among the parents in child care cases, and in a small number of cases, sexual abuse, which often take years to wend their way through the courts.
Two cases involved families from other EU countries, where they had faced child protection proceedings, including one where the parents fled to Ireland with a young baby when care proceedings may have been instigated in the UK. The two cases ended up being considered by both the District Court and the High Court simultaneously.
This volume is the first to be published under a new agreement between the CCLRP and the Department of Children and Youth Affairs.
- childlawproject.ie
